Dale Vermillion: 00:00:00

All right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:01

Hello everybody.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:01

And welcome back to another edition of batting a thousand.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:05

Um, this is our last edition for season two.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:08

We've had some incredible guests and today is no different.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:11

As you know, we interviewed the heavy hitters in the mortgage industry.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:14

Uh, and today I've got an incredible guest.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:17

Uh, Melissa Langdale is with us and Melissa is the president, the new

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:21

president, congratulations, by the way, Melissa, that's exciting news.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:25

Uh, uh, the mortgage collaborative sometimes referred to as TMC.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:28

If you don't know who the mortgage collaborative.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:31

because they've been around for a long, long time.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:33

I'll let her explain that to you, but just to give you a little bit

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:35

of credentials on Melissa, she'd been in the business over 20 years.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:39

She has been in all kinds of different capacities and roles within the

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:43

mortgage arena from area manager to RVP, to being a, uh, basically

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:49

running the VP of operations for a very large lender in the country.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:53

And she's got a lot of knowledge on.

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:56

What it takes to succeed in this marketplace and the challenges

Dale Vermillion: 00:00:59

that lenders faced in 2023 and the opportunities in 2024.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:03

And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:04

So Melissa, welcome.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:06

It is so good to have you.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:08

Thank you

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:08

so much for having me.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:09

I'm excited.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:10

It's absolutely my honor to have you here.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:12

And, um, let's begin, let's just begin by talking a little bit

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:16

about the Mortgage Collaborative.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:17

And.

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:18

Uh, you know, what you guys do, what you stand for and, uh, help people

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:22

understand a little bit about, uh, the cause that you guys have and what

Dale Vermillion: 00:01:26

you're doing to change the mortgage industry on a, on a regular basis.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:29

Yeah, I would love to talk about that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:31

I actually joined the Mortgage Collaborative as a lender as I was

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:34

building out a mortgage company for a community bank in North Carolina.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:38

Um, and what, what kind of blew me away and what really got me

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:41

hooked was, uh, I walked into my first conference and I showed up

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:45

for this thing called a collab lab.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:47

And if y'all don't know what this is, I'm going to tell you what it is.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:49

It's really, really cool.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:50

Everybody signs NDAs.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:51

It's an executive kind of round table where you walk into the

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:55

room and you share everything and anything about your business.

Melissa Langdale: 00:01:59

It really helps executives across the country be able to bounce ideas off of

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:03

others that have either, um, you know, tried new things or, uh, maybe, um, you

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:10

know, looking to, to reinvent either workflow or, or kind of, um, looking

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:14

to optimize their balance sheet, you know, a million things, everything

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:18

and anything about their business.

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:19

They, they share it with each other to help each other to grow and.

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:23

That's one of the things that makes TMC so unique is that, um, we create

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:27

these experiences and, and these, uh, opportunities for executives across the

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:31

country to really get together and to help each other, uh, to grow their businesses.

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:36

And that's why we're called the collaborative, even though we are a

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:39

mortgage cooperative, um, you know, we're very intentional about saying that we're

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:43

a collaborative just for that reason.

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:45

It's.

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:46

It's our members, the information that they share, the, the network,

Melissa Langdale: 00:02:50

the relationships that they build, uh, that really makes us

Dale Vermillion: 00:02:54

unique.

Dale Vermillion: 00:02:55

That's awesome.

Dale Vermillion: 00:02:56

And we talked, uh, beforehand, I've got a couple of really dear friends and

Dale Vermillion: 00:02:59

longtime clients, Owen Lee, um, and Alison Johnson, who both served on your board.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:05

Incredible people.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:06

They can't speak highly enough about, uh, TMC.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:09

And, uh, I love the, the, the Christmas setup.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:11

You've got, you guys, uh, just went through the, the 12 days of TMC.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:15

Talk about that a little bit.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:16

'cause you do that every year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:17

It's a really cool event.

Dale Vermillion: 00:03:19

Talk about that and how people can benefit from that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:22

Yep, I don't have my Christmas tree up in January when this is

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:25

going to be here, so I'm not quite that crazy just for everybody that's here.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:30

We do basically three conferences a year.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:33

We do two in person conferences, and then we do one virtual conference,

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:37

which we call the 12 Days.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:39

Um, we're also not crazy.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:41

It's not 12 full days of conference material.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:44

It's just a few hours in the afternoon.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:46

We, we have a keynote and then we have breakout sessions to

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:50

help people to collaborate.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:51

In fact, this year we're doing something really unique.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:54

We're doing a, our, our first ever solution sprint.

Melissa Langdale: 00:03:58

Um, and we're tackling some of the industries.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:00

Biggest challenges, um, like for right now, um, you know, increasing day one

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:05

certainty and aim utilization without increasing costs as most, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:10

kind of mortgage executives across the country, uh, are, are realizing right

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:14

now, the cost of credit reports across the verification services, all those

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:18

things are just continuing to add up.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:20

And so we're, we're tackling that, um, as a network and in

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:24

a very fun, competitive way.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:26

Uh, we're going to talk about how to, how to open up inventory in the market.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:30

that we serve.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:31

And then the last one is around creating operational efficient

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:34

efficiencies to be able to really keep our team at highest and best use.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:38

And there's a ton of technology out there that's, that's helping to facilitate that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:42

But so those are the things our solutions front is, is tackling, but

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:47

we have, you know, this is a unique conference in the sense that we have

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:51

everybody from a loan officer and a processor on the call all the way to.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:56

C-suite executives.

Melissa Langdale: 00:04:57

And so, uh, we really have a variety of content to make sure that, that they

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:01

all kind of get something out of it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:04

And it's a fun way for, um, you know, our, our entire network

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:08

and, and their employees to get involved, um, in, in something.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:13

So it's, it's a lot of fun.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:15

In fact, this is our biggest 12 days ever.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:17

We have about 3,500 people registered Wow.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:20

For lots and lots of fun.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:22

Wow.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:24

Fun excitement going on around it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:25

That is awesome.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:26

This is not up in January.

Dale Vermillion: 00:05:29

Well, and I saw that you had, uh, your keynote was

Dale Vermillion: 00:05:31

my dear friend, Brittany Hodak.

Dale Vermillion: 00:05:33

Yes.

Dale Vermillion: 00:05:34

Well, I love Brittany.

Dale Vermillion: 00:05:35

She's awesome.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:36

Gosh, she's just amazing.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:38

I love her story.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:39

Um, she's just, she's this.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:42

Brilliant mix of, of, um, you know, customer experience, uh, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:47

uh, brilliance and, um, and this kind of fun, uh, fun personality.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:52

So she, she balances those two things really well, which is.

Melissa Langdale: 00:05:57

Now,

Dale Vermillion: 00:05:57

if we could just get her to be a little more enthusiastic, we'd

Dale Vermillion: 00:05:59

probably be, you know, she has a fireplug.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:05

I love, love, love, love chatting with her.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:08

All right, well, let's, let's dive right in.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:09

Um, you mentioned some really key things a moment ago where I want to kind of

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:13

focus and channel this conversation.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:15

You know, we, we, we just are finishing up 2023.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:18

Uh, it's been a very rough year for the mortgage industry.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:21

Uh, Uh, been a very rough year for a lot of lenders and originators.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:24

Although I will tell you very honestly, you know, we, we work at mortgage

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:28

champions with 27 different lenders across the country, and some of them

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:33

are having their best year in 2023.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:35

They've ever had, uh, most of them are only about 30 percent off of

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:38

2021 numbers, which is kind of crazy.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:41

Um, and, and, and that just proves the point that there's plenty of opportunity

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:45

when you do it right now, 2024 is coming.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:48

Everything's trending in the right direction.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:50

Rates are headed down, the Fed's pulling back, inflation's improving, inventory's

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:54

getting better, house starts are way up.

Dale Vermillion: 00:06:57

So we're seeing, you know, more and more and more new construction happening.

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:00

Uh, we're seeing more of a buyer's market versus a seller's market.

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:04

All of these things point to a really great 2024.

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:09

And then I think a stellar 2025 and 2026.

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:12

So you are in the trenches talking to lenders.

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:15

Every day about their challenges.

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:17

Let's begin by talking about what were the biggest challenges that you saw in 2023?

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:24

Give me three of them.

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:25

And then what, what are those solutions?

Dale Vermillion: 00:07:28

What are the things that your members are doing to overcome those?

Melissa Langdale: 00:07:34

That's a fantastic question.

Melissa Langdale: 00:07:36

Okay, three biggest challenges for 2023.

Melissa Langdale: 00:07:39

Um, I'll, I'll chunk it down to rising cost of origination, um, operational

Melissa Langdale: 00:07:45

capacity and kind of, you know, ensuring that companies are kind of maintaining

Melissa Langdale: 00:07:50

that based on volume and that, you know, Really is, um, based on, you

Melissa Langdale: 00:07:57

know, their profitability right there.

Melissa Langdale: 00:07:59

They're kind of, uh, adjusting, uh, capacity needs based on volume

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:03

and that affects their bottom line.

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:04

So, um, and then the last would be.

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:09

You know, growing growing market share.

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:11

There's, um, you know, there's a lot of opportunities, I think, for for lenders.

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:16

You mentioned that you've got a ton of of your customers that are growing in this

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:20

marketplace, and there's just I think there's a lot of opportunities for for

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:25

lenders that are innovating that are that are looking at new ways of doing things,

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:28

both from, you know, an operational workflow technology perspective, but also

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:33

their sales model, how they're how they're helping their loan uh, at the same time.

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:38

So, uh, cost of origination, uh, working on their, their bottom line

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:43

and operational capacity as a result.

Melissa Langdale: 00:08:45

And then, um, you know, looking at growing market share.

Dale Vermillion: 00:08:49

So let's begin with that first one.

Dale Vermillion: 00:08:50

Let's begin with the cost of origination and improving, uh, the way that you've

Dale Vermillion: 00:08:55

got your system set up, you know, uh, I've had a lot of conversations

Dale Vermillion: 00:08:59

with a lot of executives and high level people about this very topic.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:02

When you really break it down, there's really, to me, there's only three ways

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:06

that you improve cost of origination.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:08

One is cut costs.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:09

That's your expense reductions.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:10

Well, just about everybody's done that one.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:12

Um, we've seen major layoffs, we've seen a lot of cutback on things,

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:16

and sometimes people are cutting the wrong things and sometimes

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:19

they're cutting the right things.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:20

I think the second is commissions.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:21

You've got to reduce commissions.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:23

That's a conversation I want to have with you to hear what

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:25

you've heard from lenders.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:27

I had Garth Graham on this year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:28

We talked a lot about this beginning of the year that, you know, based on

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:31

where projections of production has been and is going, there has to be

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:36

a case in point that at some point we got to pull back on commissions

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:39

in order to create profitability.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:40

Cause we're.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:41

Last time I looked, it's over 11, 000 to originate a loan in the mortgage industry.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:45

That is just not, you know, as the old saying goes, that dog don't hunt.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:49

We got to make sure we understand that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:51

And then the last thing, and this is the one that we focus on the most with our,

Dale Vermillion: 00:09:55

our lenders is conversion is improving that conversion rate by improving sales

Dale Vermillion: 00:10:00

process, improving operational processes.

Dale Vermillion: 00:10:02

So let's walk through those for just a minute.

Dale Vermillion: 00:10:05

And let's begin with that first piece of a cost expenditures.

Dale Vermillion: 00:10:10

What are some of the great things that you have seen lenders do to

Dale Vermillion: 00:10:14

create cost cutting that has really helped their business to succeed?

Dale Vermillion: 00:10:19

That maybe is a little bit out of the box.

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:22

We've seen people rethink workflow altogether.

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:25

Um, right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:25

You know, that, that kind of traditional LOA processor model, for example, um,

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:30

we've seen a lot of people looking at kind of, adjusting that to fit their,

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:34

their existing workflow as technology continues to evolve and, and systems,

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:39

um, continue to provide efficiencies.

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:41

um, there, there are things like that, that, that lenders can do

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:45

to try to help, uh, create some, um, you know, some efficiency in

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:49

their, in their overall process.

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:51

In, you know, some of that even affects.

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:53

A better customer experience by having kind of one point of

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:57

contact throughout the process.

Melissa Langdale: 00:10:59

Um, so there are things like that, that, that, um, individuals

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:02

are looking at doing today.

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:04

You know, there's, you hit a lot of really important points of, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:09

there's, there's kind of workflow design.

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:11

Um, there's, you know, technology stack, there's LO compensation, all

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:15

those things go into, um, go into, you know, the cost of origination, uh, over

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:23

the last several years, um, technology has, has not quite evolved as much as

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:30

customer expectations have evolved.

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:32

Right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:33

Especially in COVID, right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:34

We, You know, Amazon completely blew up and they were doing fantastic, but

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:40

now, you know, everybody's like, I can just order something and have it

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:43

delivered to me in two hours on my phone.

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:45

You know, why in the world does it still take 30 days to get

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:48

through the mortgage process?

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:49

And so we, a lot of our lenders are rethinking their overall process

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:53

to try to shorten that time.

Melissa Langdale: 00:11:56

You know, significantly, um, to just better meet customer expectations and

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:01

they're looking for technology to help them to do that, um, in, in an efficient

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:06

way, I will tell you that the challenges you, you end up and I know you know, this,

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:11

a lot of your, your listeners know this.

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:13

You end up with your core kind of loan origination system platform, and then

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:17

you're like, Oh, well, our customers need this and we need, you know, we need

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:20

this extra thing on top of it to help it to be a little bit more efficient.

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:23

And so you end up with kind of almost band aiding, um, you know, your,

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:27

your kind of core platform to meet customer expectations, to kind of help.

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:32

Um, you know, provide efficiencies in your, in your workflow too.

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:36

And so that, that definitely drives up the cost of origination

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:40

to go back to our earlier point.

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:42

And so everybody's thinking about things like that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:44

How do we rethink workflow?

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:45

How do we rethink kind of customer experience?

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:49

Help give our loan officers tools and and how do we do it in an efficient way

Melissa Langdale: 00:12:53

from a technology stack perspective?

Dale Vermillion: 00:12:55

And so what does a lender need to do?

Dale Vermillion: 00:12:58

What is the process and what are some of the best practices to

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:03

create a better structure than that?

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:05

You were a VP of operations, you know this inside and out You know, I've

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:10

said to every client I've ever worked with as I consult C level executives

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:13

and mid level managers Look, your biggest cost within the operational

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:17

capacity is duplicative efforts.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:19

Anytime you got duplication, you're paying twice for the same thing.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:22

And you gotta, you gotta get rid of that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:23

You got to understand where your duplication happens.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:26

You've got to create more uniformity in your application system.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:29

That's where things like online applications are very, very beneficial

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:33

because they create a uniform process.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:35

We don't have, as I always call it, the napkin application that, you know, a

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:39

lot of retail loan officers are, are.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:41

Guilty of, you know, here's a name and a number.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:43

They want a loan.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:44

Here you go.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:44

And you mentioned something I think that's really important earlier, and

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:49

that's the LOA processor relationship.

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:52

I can't tell you how many times I've sat down with clients and I've said,

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:56

show me the job description for an LOA and show me the job description, your

Dale Vermillion: 00:13:59

processor, and I look at them and go.

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:02

It's the same job.

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:03

It's just a little different that they're taking a little

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:05

more application information.

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:07

Why don't you merge that into one position and put a little bit more emphasis

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:11

on the originations team to get more documentation upfront so that there's less

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:16

of that they have to do on the backend.

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:18

So give me some thoughts on that, because I know this is a

Dale Vermillion: 00:14:20

great area of expertise for you.

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:22

Yeah, well that whole processor, LOA,

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:25

you hit the nail on the head.

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:26

The, but the, the reason that they're separated in a lot of

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:28

cases is verifications, right?

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:30

They, they want kind of this, you know, significant separation between

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:33

sales and operations and Right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:35

You know, it, our industry has had a ton of fraud over the

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:38

years and this, you know, helps companies to kind of mitigate that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:43

But as our, as our, um, industry continues to evolve and technology

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:47

continues to evolve that whole direct to data connection with,

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:51

you know, verification platforms really reduces a lot of that risk.

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:55

And so it's important to rethink, okay, we, do we actually need these kind of

Melissa Langdale: 00:14:59

check the checker, um, layers in our process that really slow down the process,

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:05

add extra costs from both it, you know.

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:08

Um, uh, an employee standpoint, you know, you're, you're having to have all

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:12

this, this extra, you know, head count in order to just get a loan from ABC.

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:17

Um, and so, you know, it, it, it's those type of things that lenders

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:22

are, are rethinking and, and you hit the nail on the head that, that

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:25

particular role, that, that LOA processor has traditionally been the.

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:31

The easiest thing, I guess, for people to see that that is really

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:34

a check the checker, um, moment.

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:36

And so a lot of lenders are just rethinking what that looks like,

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:40

uh, in the future now that they've got kind of a lot of direct to

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:43

data connections with verification platforms, even though those are.

Melissa Langdale: 00:15:47

Those are, uh, very costly right now.

Dale Vermillion: 00:15:50

Yep, no question about it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:15:52

So, talk a little bit about, you mentioned earlier something really

Dale Vermillion: 00:15:56

important, and that is the whole day one certainty and the costs

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:00

that are going up on credit reports, title reports, I mean, you name it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:05

It's everything is going north instead of going south.

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:10

And you said you guys had, uh, you know, a collaborative of people that were talking

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:14

about that, of lenders and executives.

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:15

Tell, tell our audience.

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:17

You know, what, what came out of that?

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:19

What were some of the solutions and ideas that came out of that?

Dale Vermillion: 00:16:22

Because that would be pure gold to the listeners.

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:26

Yeah, I, we're still in the midst of it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:29

So it's a, um, we, uh, our, our, our presentations will be December 15th.

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:35

Um, and I know this, this is going to air after that, but we'll have a

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:38

press release that goes through all of the solutions that were presented.

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:43

Um, and just to make sure that the, the industry is aware of.

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:47

of some things that people can do on a regular basis to help.

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:51

Um, that particularly is, is, I think has been a challenge for our industry

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:56

and has a lot of, uh, potential opportunities for improvements over time.

Melissa Langdale: 00:16:59

For, for example, today, Day One Certainty and AIM both utilize this kind of direct

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:06

to data connection that in a lot of cases requires the customer to log in to.

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:11

To some platform.

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:13

And so anytime this kind of layer of, um, you know, password, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:18

customers having to share their password with their lenders in the process,

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:21

they automatically get this, you know, kind of pause of, okay, well, how

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:25

much of my data are you gathering?

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:27

How often are you going to pull it?

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:28

Like, do I need to change my password after this?

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:31

Is this really safe for me to do in other words?

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:34

And so, you know, what's been, I think what's been holding back, you

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:37

know, uncertainty in AIM utilization is, is really the, the customer being

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:41

comfortable and confident in sharing their, their data throughout the process.

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:45

So I think there's, there's going to be continued opportunities for us to

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:48

find better systems for customers to be more comfortable, uh, with sharing,

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:53

sharing their information or lenders getting it directly, um, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:17:57

from sources without necessarily needing that, that customer layer.

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:01

And it could.

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:02

You know, reduce fraud for the industry as a whole too, right?

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:05

If, if lenders are going direct to data, direct to IRS, direct to payroll,

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:09

direct to, you know, all of those things, you, you naturally reduce the

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:12

risk of a customer, um, leveraging generative AI to create a pay, uh, you

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:18

know, a pay stub or a W 2 or, you know, all of those sorts of things that,

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:21

that are in our space right now and, and lenders are having to deal with.

Dale Vermillion: 00:18:25

It's a little mind boggling, isn't it?

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:27

You know, those layers have been in our space for, for so.

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:31

So long and less generative AI, you know, can, can help, uh, with creation of some

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:37

of those things, but frankly whiteout and, um, a typewriter could have helped

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:43

with those things back in the day too.

Melissa Langdale: 00:18:45

So those lenders will always be in our industry.

Dale Vermillion: 00:18:48

So you, you talk to lenders all over the place and you've

Dale Vermillion: 00:18:53

seen the same thing that I've seen.

Dale Vermillion: 00:18:54

You've seen the lenders who are doing very well in this market.

Dale Vermillion: 00:18:58

Okay.

Dale Vermillion: 00:18:58

And they're kind of like, well, I don't get what the problem is.

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:01

You see the lenders that are just freaking out and they

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:06

really don't know where to go.

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:08

Okay.

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:09

Here's my question for you.

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:11

The ones on this hand, the ones that are really doing well.

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:14

Okay, tell me what you're seeing in them that is making them successful and from

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:22

any vantage point, from mindset, how they think about the industry and the

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:26

business methodology, what they're doing to make differences, give us a little

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:31

bit of insight on what you're hearing from those top producing lenders are some

Dale Vermillion: 00:19:36

strategies and some things that they are implementing that is making a difference.

Melissa Langdale: 00:19:43

Some of this probably won't be rocket science to

Melissa Langdale: 00:19:45

you, but we, um, you know, a lot of our lenders that are growing right now

Melissa Langdale: 00:19:50

are doing it with really experienced purchase focused loan officers.

Melissa Langdale: 00:19:55

Right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:19:56

And, and we've talked about that as an industry for years, but

Melissa Langdale: 00:19:59

that is the, that is the kind of.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:01

Um, the foundation that that a lot of mortgage successful

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:05

mortgage companies live on it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:06

And that's where, you know, we've seen our lenders continue to grow

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:10

is that they're, they're really focused on hiring some of the best.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:13

They have a fantastic recruiting program.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:16

They have a fantastic marketing platform.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:19

To be able to support those loan officers and they have reasonable expectations

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:24

from a compensation perspective.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:26

Most of the loan officers that are out there today recognize that they,

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:30

there's a balance of being competitive in the marketplace with kind of,

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:35

you know, compensation models.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:37

Um, At lenders and they want the lender to be reasonable.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:41

I, I don't think anybody's, you know, coming out of the gate these

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:44

days and saying, Hey, I want to make 200 pips on a, on a loan and

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:48

be priced out of the marketplace.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:49

Right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:50

So, you know, I think most everybody right now, as long as compensation is

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:54

reasonable, um, in the marketplace.

Melissa Langdale: 00:20:58

They're going to be fine, but they're really looking for tools.

Melissa Langdale: 00:21:01

They're looking for tools to be successful.

Melissa Langdale: 00:21:02

They're looking for a fantastic operation team behind them that they,

Melissa Langdale: 00:21:07

they can call on at any given moment to give answers, give updates, move the

Melissa Langdale: 00:21:12

process through really, really quickly.

Melissa Langdale: 00:21:14

Um, so again, I don't think any of that's rocket science.

Melissa Langdale: 00:21:17

Those are things that, you know, top producing retail and officers

Melissa Langdale: 00:21:20

across the country have been doing for years and years and years.

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:24

Well, and you're right, it's not rocket science, but

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:27

you said a couple of very important things there that I want to unpack now.

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:30

So, you started by saying, very experienced, purchase loan officers, okay?

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:36

And the thing that I pick up in that, and I talk about this all the time, in

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:39

fact, I just did a speaking engagement, um, both at AIM, uh, FUSE, and, uh,

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:46

the month of November and then did something again at the Lenny Tree Summit.

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:50

And I talked about this on both places, specialization.

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:53

It's so important today.

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:55

You know, the, the companies that I see that do well, they

Dale Vermillion: 00:21:59

don't have a loan officer that handles purchase, refi, HELOC.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:02

All of it, you know, it's the jack of all trades, master of none.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:05

Um, and that's not what referral partners want.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:08

They want experts.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:09

They want specialists.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:11

So the fact that, that companies that are doing well have purchased specialists,

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:15

they also have refi specialists that are experienced in that product.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:19

They're not crossing over.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:21

They're, they're focusing on doing it right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:23

How much is that playing a role in them being successful?

Dale Vermillion: 00:22:26

You think?

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:28

I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head.

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:30

I mean, obviously, everybody in the marketplace today is looking at is looking

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:33

at purchase business with the kind of rare exception of maybe a cash out refi,

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:38

um, or, you know, an equity line, like you mentioned, but the majority of the

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:42

market, obviously, today is purchase.

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:44

And so, you know, Referral partners, realtors, um, you know, in some

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:49

cases, financial planners, divorce attorneys, those sort of things are

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:52

all looking for individuals that can help them to ensure that their

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:57

customers are well taken care of.

Melissa Langdale: 00:22:59

And it really does take somebody that's in that space all the time

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:02

to understand all the layers that goes into the purchase cycle.

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:06

Um, you know, all the, the layers that the realtor has to deal with

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:10

all the layers that, you know, if they're going through a divorce, for

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:13

example, that they have to deal with.

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:15

And it takes somebody to understand that whole process.

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:18

Um, you got to be in it every day to understand it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:21

So I totally agree with you that the, the, you know, focusing in on, on one

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:27

particular area can be really, really helpful and is really driving a lot of.

Melissa Langdale: 00:23:31

Uh, you know, top producing loan officers across the country to continue to be

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:35

successful, right?

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:36

And I think it's important we define what experience is because, you know,

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:40

if, if a lot of times when we think about the experience, for example,

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:43

purchase specialist, a lot of those people are close to retirement.

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:46

Now, if you look at the average age of mortgage originators, particularly

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:49

in the distributed retail market, it's close to 60 years old now.

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:53

That many of them are and they've made a lot of money in years.

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:57

They don't necessarily have to work.

Dale Vermillion: 00:23:59

So you got to find the people that are still hungry.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:01

So got that fire in the belly, you know, no matter what their age is, they've got

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:05

a, they've got a runway ahead of them still that they're going after, because if

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:09

you're getting them in the twilight of a career, they might not, even though they

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:12

may have been very successful in the past.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:14

It doesn't mean they're going to be very successful in the future.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:16

You need somebody in this market.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:17

Who's very driven because it's a market where, you know, the realtor's business

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:21

is much slower than it used to be.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:23

You have to have a much bigger network than ever before.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:26

The, these are all essentials to, to this process.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:29

So when we talk experience, experience might only be five to 10 years.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:34

It's five to 10 years of high production where they've done

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:38

it again and again and again.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:40

And they're proven entity.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:40

And I think you said the most important thing there, because I get this question

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:44

a lot from leaders about recruiting.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:46

Okay.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:46

When you're recruiting, who are you looking for?

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:48

We have, you know, I hear a lot from leaders.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:50

Well, you know, I get guys who want big signing bonuses or I get gals who want

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:55

to come in and you know, they, they, they want this high basis point percentage.

Dale Vermillion: 00:24:59

I don't see that very much in my conversations.

Dale Vermillion: 00:25:01

What I hear a lot is, I want the tools.

Dale Vermillion: 00:25:03

I want the technology.

Dale Vermillion: 00:25:05

I want the marketing support.

Dale Vermillion: 00:25:06

Uh, I want the education.

Dale Vermillion: 00:25:09

I want a great ops department that backs me up.

Dale Vermillion: 00:25:11

These are the things that seem to matter more.

Dale Vermillion: 00:25:14

Would you agree with that statement?

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:16

100 percent agree.

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:17

And I, I want to go back to one thing that you said to you, you mentioned all of

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:20

the, All of the things that loan officers have to do today to be successful.

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:25

Um, you know, in this cycle, particularly not unlike, although it is a little

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:30

different, um, not unlike 2008, 2009, loan officers are having to do more in

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:35

order to get the same amount of business.

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:37

And, and I have seen, you know, that, um, kind of.

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:42

Either younger generation or, um, kind of, you mentioned like five to 10 years

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:47

of, of experience, those that have enough experience that they're knowledgeable,

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:52

they're driven, they're willing to pivot and do, you know, try new things.

Melissa Langdale: 00:25:58

And they're the, the hustlers, you know, in this case, you know, for, for lack of

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:03

a better word, those are, it may not even be that they're working 90 hours a week.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:08

Right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:08

They're, they're just.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:09

They're leveraging technology to do more with less.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:12

They're, they're, um, creating great marketing platforms.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:16

They're, um, in systems.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:18

They're creating teams behind them that can keep that, that kind of

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:22

wheel churning so that they're constantly at highest and best use.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:26

And so, um, the companies that figure out how to support those loan officers.

Melissa Langdale: 00:26:31

It's going to be a lot of fun to watch them grow.

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:34

Yeah, it will.

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:35

So let me ask you a question.

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:37

Then let's talk about a different perspective on personnel.

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:42

Um, you know, I started in the business, I've been 40 years doing this gig.

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:45

I started in 1983 years, I managed all the way up to running a national

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:48

mortgage company with 900 loan officers and 2, 300 employees.

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:51

So had a little experience before I got into training consulting on Dealing

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:55

with salespeople and operations people.

Dale Vermillion: 00:26:57

And interestingly enough, my philosophy of hiring was the same for all 12 years.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:02

If you had one day mortgage experience, I wouldn't hire you.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:05

I only hired people off the street.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:07

I only hired people that were go getters, hustlers, that wanted

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:11

to learn, that wanted to grow.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:13

And in those days you could do that very effectively.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:16

Okay, now fast forward 2023 2024.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:19

Okay, I hear from a lot of clients, you know what, I don't think that's

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:23

the way you can hire anymore.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:24

And I, I always push back on that and go, I don't think you can

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:29

hire a hundred percent like that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:31

That would be a challenge.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:32

However, if you have a core of experienced leaders that are in your Originations

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:39

team, and you can bring in people who are hungry with today's technology

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:43

that helps aid a lot of what they do.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:45

Uh, with today's opportunity to network so much easier than you used to.

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:49

And with their understanding of things like social media and how to communicate

Dale Vermillion: 00:27:55

in different ways, video, video is a huge way to communicate today for today's

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:00

marketplace, because that's what people are used to with all of the, you know,

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:03

the reels that everybody watches and tick tocks, the biggest thing on the planet.

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:07

So do you hear or much from your lenders about.

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:14

Bringing in new people and training them from the ground up because at some

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:18

point you're going to have to do that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:19

You can't always hire experienced because then you're just

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:21

cannibalizing your own business.

Dale Vermillion: 00:28:23

Talk to me a little bit about that mindset and that thought.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:26

You know, that, that's always, it's always a struggle.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:29

Um, you know, there, there is.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:31

There is a space for those, those hungry individuals to definitely

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:36

partner with top producers.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:37

And I have seen some of our lenders doing it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:40

In fact, we've had a lot of requests.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:42

We have a platform called TMCU, um, which is our, um, TMCU university.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:47

And that, you know, we're, we're building out kind of a mortgage

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:50

essentials products within that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:52

because we, we keep hearing, um, from our lenders that they really would

Melissa Langdale: 00:28:57

love to be able to take advantage of that opportunity to bring in new to the

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:01

industry folks for a lot of reasons.

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:02

Um, you know, our, our, the speed of innovation and in our space today is

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:07

really, really fast and having individuals that can come in with a different

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:11

perspective and have different, you know, insights on, you know, like you said, how

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:15

to, how to leverage social media, how to.

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:17

Um, you know, uh, do video and do reels and, um, you know, shift kind of the

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:23

marketing strategy is really important and really valuable to organizations.

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:29

But there has to be kind of a, a way for them to have a baseline

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:33

knowledge build in the process.

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:35

And so partnering them with, you know, with folks, like you said, that are,

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:39

that are experienced leaders that can see the opportunity to grow as a, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:44

as they bring in this next generation.

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:47

Could be really, really impactful for organization and for that

Melissa Langdale: 00:29:51

leader that's bringing them on.

Dale Vermillion: 00:29:52

That's good.

Dale Vermillion: 00:29:53

Building a partnering mentoring kind of philosophy, having, uh, utilizing

Dale Vermillion: 00:29:56

resources like you guys have, and we have, where you're training, we're

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:00

training loan officers every day from the ground up how to do this.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:03

And, and I'll tell you something that will kind of shock you.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:05

Uh, um, and you know, I've worked with over 700 lenders

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:08

in the 27 years I've done this.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:11

And we're usually working with about 30 in any given year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:13

And, um, this year in 2023, The top three clients that I have that have

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:20

made the most money, produce the most business and have the highest units

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:23

and dollars per loan officer are all refinance only, believe it or not.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:30

And they are all three consumer direct.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:33

And they all three have gone by the philosophy of we're bringing

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:36

people in off the street.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:36

We're not hiring experienced people and we're training them from the ground up.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:39

So there is a case for that that says it can work.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:44

Um, if you really have specialists who are well trained, but each of them also

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:49

has a mentoring program, just like you're talking about, where they have experienced

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:52

people that have done it, that they can.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:54

put them side by side.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:55

They can coach and mentor them.

Dale Vermillion: 00:30:57

Uh, you know, and what they find is that those mentors actually do more

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:01

production, not less because they're kind of showing off in front of the

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:05

rookie is what it comes down to.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:08

So there is a case for that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:09

And I think You know, the, the services you guys provide, uh, and hopefully

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:13

we provide are very valuable in doing that because that's where I think the

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:16

market's going to go in the future and certainly consumer direct, it's easier

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:20

to bring in people off the street than our distributed retail, because you're

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:23

talking about long relationships that have been forged with partners, referral

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:27

partners, that's a little different game.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:29

Although I will tell you, you know, I love to share the story.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:32

There's, there's a lady that I trained a year and a half ago at a large

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:35

bank, fresh, fresh off the street, never been in the mortgage business.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:39

And.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:40

I trained her on just open houses.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:42

I said, just go do open houses and, and, and you'll be successful.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:46

Lo and behold, in, uh, the, I think it was August or September of

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:51

this year, it was her 11th month.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:53

And she had 4.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:54

6 million in production in her 11th month.

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:57

And I said, how'd you do it?

Dale Vermillion: 00:31:58

She said, I go to six open houses every Saturday and that fuels the

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:03

fire for the entire rest of the week.

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:04

So there is business out there if you go after it and do it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:08

All right, let's talk about, um, let's talk about technology

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:12

a little bit more for a minute.

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:13

Um, AI is coming.

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:15

We know that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:16

What do you think?

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:17

It's here.

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:18

Yeah, I should say that, but it's coming more and more and

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:20

more to the mortgage industry.

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:21

What do you think the impact is going to be?

Dale Vermillion: 00:32:23

And what do you see as the pluses and minuses of AI?

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:27

Gosh, that's, there's a lot in that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:29

So, you know, obviously AI is here.

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:31

There, there's a lot for lenders to think about both from how

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:34

do I, how do I leverage it appropriately, um, in my organization?

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:39

How do I understand really the risk that our organization has?

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:42

Um, and then, you know, how do we.

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:46

How do we continue to innovate at the speed that consumers want and

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:50

leverage that to be able to do that?

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:52

And it's, but, but also not just build a front end engine.

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:56

Um, that's really, really fast.

Melissa Langdale: 00:32:58

How do I leverage it to produce quality loans and to sell them faster?

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:02

Um, and so, you know, there's, there's ways to, to use AI

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:07

for all of those things.

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:09

You know, I, I see it today as, um, there's, there's processes that mortgage

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:13

has built, for example, underwriters, um, you know, you bring in a brand

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:18

new underwriter, what do you do?

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:19

Uh, you, you put them through a QC process, of course, you don't tell

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:23

them they can underwrite, you know, FHA loans with no guidance, um, there's

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:29

things like that, that, that lenders are really starting to think through,

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:32

how do I leverage AI in a way that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:34

Um, that keeps my team at highest and best use, but also allows me to keep a pulse

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:40

on, on, um, what's working and what might not be working from an AI perspective.

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:47

Not a lot of lenders are considering kind of decisioning, um, through, through AI.

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:53

They're, they're mostly considering how do I create kind of operational efficiency

Melissa Langdale: 00:33:56

scenario desks, for example, for their, their underwriters or their loan officers.

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:02

Um, there are some technology providers that, that are in our network that

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:06

are looking at ways to either create, um, transparency in the process with

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:10

consumers as they're going through a mortgage, um, with, with kind of task

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:16

creation and, um, document review, uh, faster and, and things like that,

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:22

that, um, Um, you know, it's fantastic.

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:25

They're improving customer experience, but they're not really

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:28

relying on it for decisioning.

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:29

They have kind of human and loop processes or QC processes where

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:33

they're kind of testing the systems.

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:36

I think the probably our regulators, our GSEs, um, are a little nervous

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:42

about AI because there are so many things that it is capable of.

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:47

Especially as it learns more and more and more over time.

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:51

And really, you know, there's, there probably will be eventually expectations

Melissa Langdale: 00:34:56

of lenders that they're going to be kind of held accountable for the decisions

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:00

that they're allowing systems to, uh, to have, but we'll, we'll see where it goes.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:06

Um, you know, they're, they're held accountable today

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:08

to underwriter decisions.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:10

Right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:11

Um, and so, uh, you know, I, I think there's.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:14

There's going to be a lot that's evolving.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:15

It is evolving really, really, really fast.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:18

That we're, we spend a lot of time talking about it with our lenders.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:22

In fact, I created a, um, a group that is an innovation focused

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:26

working group, uh, that spends a lot of time talking about AI.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:30

It's called SparkLab.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:31

Um, and, uh, you know, just.

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:34

Helping everybody to understand the difference between kind of basic

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:37

business roles that you build in your, your system that, that creates kind of

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:41

a little bit of operational efficiency to, you know, AI and then generative AI

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:46

that really needs kind of large language models that you're using for, for some

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:50

level of maybe income calculations or, you know, but it's not like full

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:54

decisioning, but it, but it has the ability of, of digesting information and

Melissa Langdale: 00:35:59

providing significant data to the process.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:03

Okay, good.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:04

It's interesting because I've got a very good friend of mine.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:06

I've known for 25 years.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:08

He has been the head of, uh, some very large lenders, technology departments.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:13

He is just a whiz when it comes to all the technology.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:16

And we had a conversation about AI and I learned something from him that I never

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:19

knew that there's different about him.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:21

Places, I guess you can get AI from and what their company does, he's, he's

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:27

now running, running his own company.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:28

What they do is they go in and they'll take questions and they'll put them

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:31

in and they'll match the four and.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:33

A lot of them are incorrect, not even close to correct.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:37

And then one is closer and then one's the actual number that you'll get.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:39

And, and they're constantly screening through to get the right

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:42

and best answer all the time.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:43

So, you know, there's a lot of efficiencies that we gained by AI, but

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:47

lenders will have to be really careful.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:48

Cause I know this was the number one conversation that I heard at the

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:51

Lenny Tree summit when I was speaking at that, you know, that, that's it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:54

That was a tech.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:55

a tech conference for all intents and purposes.

Dale Vermillion: 00:36:57

And AI was the rage of the conversation.

Dale Vermillion: 00:37:00

And some people were really excited and some people were scared to death.

Dale Vermillion: 00:37:02

And, you know, it was such a wide scope that I saw.

Dale Vermillion: 00:37:06

Yep.

Dale Vermillion: 00:37:07

It's

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:07

you hit the nail on the head.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:08

It really is, um, data in, like, you've got to have a big enough

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:12

language model and a really good system for helping AI to learn.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:17

Yep.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:18

Um, and, and I think that's where the, the.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:21

You know, evolution needs to continue to go in the mortgage space is that

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:24

we have to be able to ensure that these platforms are learning the

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:27

right way for a lot of reasons.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:30

You don't want, um, you know, a part of the process to unintentionally

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:34

discourage a customer to, to not move forward because, um, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:39

they don't have the full picture or they're making the wrong decision or,

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:41

you know, whatever the case, there's.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:42

there's like fair lending implications in some of this too.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:45

And so, um, yes, you, you have to be able to understand the data that's going in.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:50

You have to have a good test process, um, you know, to ensure that it's learning

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:55

the way that you, you want it to learn.

Melissa Langdale: 00:37:56

So

Dale Vermillion: 00:37:57

2024 for a minute.

Dale Vermillion: 00:37:59

Um, uh, what do you see from the mortgage collaborative?

Dale Vermillion: 00:38:03

What, what do you see and kind of, you know, what is your, um,

Dale Vermillion: 00:38:08

What is your outlook for 2024?

Dale Vermillion: 00:38:10

Give us the good, the bad and the ugly.

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:13

Well, if we all had a crystal ball.

Dale Vermillion: 00:38:17

Good point.

Dale Vermillion: 00:38:18

That's a good start.

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:20

You know, I'll just preface that, right?

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:22

Hopes and dreams and wishes and unicorns and rainbows.

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:24

I think that, um, you know, Look, our, our industry has been challenged

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:31

over the last couple of years.

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:33

I think challenges, um, are, are actually kind of cool because they

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:37

allow for, um, lenders and, and our industry to kind of rethink things.

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:42

And, um, you know, I, I think they've spent a lot of time rethinking things

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:48

and those that have really built a good, solid foundation of, of, you

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:53

know, innovation as well as support, um, are, are going to be really.

Melissa Langdale: 00:38:58

Poised in 2024 is that market starts to shift and I think that

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:03

it will, um, you know, that, that they're going to be able to take

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:07

some market share when that happens.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:09

Um, so it'll be, it'll be interesting.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:11

I mean, you know, look at the end of the day, there's a significant

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:15

portion of the, um, of homeowners across the country that have interest

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:21

rates that, uh, even if rates go down to, you know, 6 percent won't be.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:28

percent won't be refinanceable.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:30

Um, and so, you know, I, I don't think we're going to see a giant

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:34

surge of refinance opportunities.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:35

I could be wrong.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:36

Um, I, I, you know, hope for our industry that I am, but I think

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:40

there's going to be a really solid purchase market in the coming year.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:43

I think you're going to see inventory, you know, open up some of these,

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:47

um, Um, Some of the builders that, that you've mentioned have kind

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:50

of increased starts are going to start to hit the market in 2024.

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:53

And so this, I think all of those things coming together is

Melissa Langdale: 00:39:57

going to make for a good year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:39:59

Yeah.

Dale Vermillion: 00:39:59

I mean, in the month of December or month of November, the statistics on new home

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:04

starts was annualized million new homes.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:08

That's a lot of new inventory.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:09

When you consider where we're.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:10

Our numbers are at right now, so that should lag into 2024.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:15

We've still got some supply chain issues and other things that we're

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:17

dealing with, but you know, overall, I think that's going to be good.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:20

And look from a refinance perspective, if we do get down in the low

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:25

sixes, high fives, I mean, we've, we've made a fair amount of loans.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:28

I mean, 325, 000 approximate loans will close in 2023.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:33

Um, and an average probably of 7.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:36

25 percent coupon.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:38

If you average them all out, you get down to six there, there's some

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:41

opportunities, especially when you include in the fact that the average

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:45

credit cardage straight is up to 27.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:47

8 percent right now.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:49

That's the average.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:50

That's not, that's crazy.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:52

That's, that means we got 35 percent credit cards out there,

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:54

you know, home equity lines are 13, 14 percent a lot of times.

Dale Vermillion: 00:40:57

So when you start looking at all those blended rates and putting all that debt

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:01

together and consumer debt is by far the highest it's ever been in us history.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:06

While at the same time, equity is the highest has ever been in us history.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:08

So there's opportunities there, I think for 2024, but, uh, I'm with you.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:13

I think that, I think we're going to see much better trending, Uh, from what

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:17

we saw this year, we, we had some major things that happened this year that

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:20

we thought we were going to see that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:22

And then we had the debt ceiling problem.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:24

And then we had the downgrade from Fitch, you know, just, it seemed

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:27

like one thing after another hit 2024 is an election year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:30

That's always a good thing.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:32

Good things happen in election years, generally for the mortgage industry.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:35

Melissa Langdale: Historically, you're right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:37

There, there is generally a lowering of interest rates in an election year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:41

So we can all, we can all

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:42

look forward to that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:45

Let's hope that really happens because we don't, yeah, I don't want to hear any

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:50

more reports in 2024 of hawkish comments.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:53

I'm so tired of that phrase, hawkish comments.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:56

I've seen that so many times.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:58

All right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:41:58

So give us, um, to kind of wrap this up, uh, from your perspective.

Dale Vermillion: 00:42:03

Two or three things that you think are critical for lenders to really be

Dale Vermillion: 00:42:09

doing in the coming year and really be focusing on to improve their businesses.

Dale Vermillion: 00:42:15

Um, uh, straight, straight from, from your book, from your playbook, this

Dale Vermillion: 00:42:19

is some Melissa wisdom for everybody to, to have no pressure at all.

Dale Vermillion: 00:42:24

We, we know, we know you, we know you've got the experience and the,

Dale Vermillion: 00:42:27

and the wisdom to share with that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:42:29

So give lenders an idea of what you think should be happening in 2024.

Melissa Langdale: 00:42:34

You know, I, I think, um, the, with the market looking to shift,

Melissa Langdale: 00:42:39

um, you know, in the coming year, I think it's going to be really, really important

Melissa Langdale: 00:42:44

for leaders to understand what their teams really need in order to navigate

Melissa Langdale: 00:42:48

something like that, um, especially when staffing levels have been low and have

Melissa Langdale: 00:42:53

had to be, you know, lowered over the last, you know, couple of years, right?

Melissa Langdale: 00:42:57

Um, it's going to be important for the, You know, leaders to step up and realize

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:01

that their teams are going to need different things in a growing market.

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:04

Uh, it's also going to be important to, to not, um, to, to manage kind

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:09

of expectations as the market, uh, shifts and, and try to leverage

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:14

technology as much as they can to.

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:16

scale businesses, um, with, without necessarily having the swings of, of

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:21

headcount, um, that our, our industry has seen over the years and needed to

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:25

have seen, uh, to keep loans moving.

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:28

Um, so leverage technology, be fantastic leaders.

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:32

Um, and you know, I think continue to build relationships in the markets

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:37

that they serve at the end of the day, you and I know we've been in

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:40

this industry long enough that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:41

you know, success happens with relationships and local markets

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:45

that you serve, put you in front of the right customers that are really

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:49

ready, willing, and able to buy.

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:51

Um, and so, yeah, build relationships, be great leaders and, uh, try to scale

Melissa Langdale: 00:43:56

as much as possible with technology.

Dale Vermillion: 00:43:58

Okay.

Dale Vermillion: 00:43:58

So let me ask you two final questions then on that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:01

Let's talk about being a great leader.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:02

Define that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:03

For me, but from, from your perspective, you meet leaders all the time.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:07

You see the great ones.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:08

What are the characteristics that you see in them that somebody can

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:11

say, man, I need more of that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:13

Yeah.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:14

Gosh, that's such a good question.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:16

Uh, everybody defines leadership a little bit different.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:18

I, um, am a, a servant leader kind of mentality at the end of the day is

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:24

about kind of bringing vision, being the compass for your, your team that they

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:29

need, kind of showing them the direction the company has to go and helping them

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:33

and guiding them along the way to, to keep moving in the right direction.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:37

And I think as long as you're You know, you're, you're one step ahead of

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:41

where your, your company wants to go.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:43

And you've got this really fantastic vision.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:45

You're a great communicator along it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:47

And you, you are understanding and caring of the people around you.

Melissa Langdale: 00:44:52

Um, I don't know that that to me is a great leader.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:55

I love what you just said there.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:57

That was pure gold.

Dale Vermillion: 00:44:57

When you said be a compass for your organization.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:00

I think, I think the mortgage collaborator should get a t shirt.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:03

That says that I think that's a great, great, because it's, that's

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:07

a great visual right there is you got to be the North star as a leader

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:12

and couldn't agree with you more.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:13

If you're not a servant leader, you're not a leader in my book, period.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:17

Because if you're not serving your people, then they think you're in it for yourself.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:23

And the moment they think that they're not going to follow you anywhere.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:25

And I loved how you talked about the power of the importance of communication

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:29

to have a vision communicated effectively and make sure you're keeping that

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:34

really positive mindset going forward.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:36

Because the thing that I see the most common in the best leaders

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:40

is you just can't get them down.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:42

I mean, it doesn't matter what the market does.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:45

They understand, you know, what it's, it's what I call the pivoting concept.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:48

Okay.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:49

So that's a problem.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:50

Nothing we can do to change it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:52

Let's solve it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:54

Let's now take that problem.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:55

Let's turn it into something good.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:57

Let's work through this and not look backwards.

Dale Vermillion: 00:45:59

They're always looking out the front window.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:01

They're not looking in the rear view mirror.

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:02

That's right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:03

And I, I think you just hit the nail on the head that kind of perfecting the art

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:08

of the pivot, um, can, can absolutely help leaders, you know, be that compass, right?

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:14

Um, maybe the, the direction needs to, to move a little bit, but you

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:19

Uh, just recognizing the fact that, you know, the same things you did

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:22

yesterday and changing work won't be the things that are necessary

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:25

needed for your team in the future.

Melissa Langdale: 00:46:27

And so,

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:28

uh, I love it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:28

It's good.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:29

And then let's talk, the last thing is about relationship.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:32

You talked about that too.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:33

And, you know, this is something that, that I talk about.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:36

All the time, you know, I, I've been a partner with ICE, uh, mortgage technology

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:42

and that whole group for a long time.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:44

And I've spoke at their conferences year after year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:47

I'm speaking again, uh, this year in 2024.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:49

Um, and what I've really focused those speeches around is high tech, high

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:54

touch, you know, technology's critical.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:57

You, you gotta have it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:46:58

You've got to be up to date on it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:00

You got to use it for efficiencies, but what you can't use it for.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:04

is building relationship and loyalty.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:07

You need people to do that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:08

You need conversations with your customers, conversations with

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:11

your partners that are value based conversations where you really build

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:16

deep relationships, really understand their needs, understand their

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:20

goals, understand their challenges, and then solve those things.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:25

Give me a little bit more of your thought process on the power and importance of

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:29

relationship in today's marketplace.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:31

Because a lot of people think, Oh no, Just build a great technology and go to town.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:34

But we've seen a lot of fintech companies fail miserably where their

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:38

whole mindset was all tech for the consumer, no personal relationship.

Dale Vermillion: 00:47:43

And what I'm seeing is my top clients, it's all personal relationship.

Melissa Langdale: 00:47:48

You know, I think there's a balance of it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:47:49

I'll kind of play devil's advocate a little bit.

Melissa Langdale: 00:47:52

Yeah, I do.

Melissa Langdale: 00:47:53

I think there's a balance and you hit the nail on the head, but what

Melissa Langdale: 00:47:55

you were talking about at your ICE conference is the balance of

Melissa Langdale: 00:47:59

kind of high touch and high tech.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:02

Um, there, there, there are places for technology to allow customers

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:06

to have transparency in the process.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:08

To be able to self serve as they have the knowledge and skill

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:12

set and ability to self serve.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:15

And, um, and also have a high touch person that's coming along

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:20

beside them and helping them to get through one of the biggest financial

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:25

decisions that they're having to make in their lifetime, especially if

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:29

they're doing it for the first time.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:30

Right.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:30

And so there is that, that balance, I think of.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:34

Allowing them to self serve where they can and being that resource, um, to

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:39

help them to think broader beyond.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:41

I just need an interest rate.

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:43

You know, um, you know, I had one of my, my loan officers, you know,

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:49

years and years and years ago, and he would have, you know, this is like

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:53

an age old question where customers call and they say, Hey, what, what,

Melissa Langdale: 00:48:57

you know, what's your interest rate, what's your 30 year fixed rate today?

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:00

And he would always answer it with, well, What rate do you need?

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:04

I, I have all of the rates and it was such a brilliant way to just.

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:11

Just, just flip the conversation and say, what's really important to you.

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:16

And I think as long as loan officers are taking that approach and being

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:19

really, um, consultative to customers as well as their real estate partners

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:25

and referral partners, the key is, is you gotta have both sides.

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:29

You can be fantastic on the customer side, but if you're not building

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:32

relationships with your realtors, your builders, your financial planners,

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:35

your divorce attorneys, those, Those people that are continually, um, you

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:39

know, providing you with referrals.

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:41

You're, you're going to miss the boat.

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:42

Cause somebody else is going to do it.

Melissa Langdale: 00:49:43

That's right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:45

That's right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:45

Yeah.

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:47

And just, just to clarify, in case I didn't make that clear, I am a huge fan of

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:50

technology and, and you have to have both.

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:52

You're absolutely right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:53

Couldn't agree with it more.

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:54

But, but as I look at today's marketplace, it feels to me like

Dale Vermillion: 00:49:59

you could survive better with.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:02

lesser tech and higher relationship than you would with higher

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:05

tech and lesser relationship.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:07

A hundred percent.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:08

Yeah.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:08

And, and, and you said something earlier that was important.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:11

You said, you know, you got to know those customers that want to self serve.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:13

And, and what I see in the industry a lot, and, you know, this year

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:19

alone, I probably listened over.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:20

400 sales calls with my clients.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:22

Because part of what I do, I'll train their loan.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:25

We'll train their loan officers.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:26

We'll train their leaders.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:28

We train their ops team.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:29

We work with the entire company to build a uniform selling system,

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:32

operation system, and leadership system.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:33

It's all built around that servant leader mindset and serving your customers.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:37

Well, but then what we'll do is we'll do shopper calls on the

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:40

backend to make sure they're doing the things that we want them to do.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:43

And we've listened to call after call, after call, after call,

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:46

where the borrower was sent a link.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:49

But the borrower actually never asked for the link.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:52

They didn't really want to be self serve.

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:54

What the loan originator said was, well, I could take an application or I can

Dale Vermillion: 00:50:59

send you this link, which is much easier.

Dale Vermillion: 00:51:01

And the borrower was like, well, okay.

Dale Vermillion: 00:51:04

And then I look at studies that tell me again and again, and again, about 30

Dale Vermillion: 00:51:07

percent want to do the link and about 70 percent want to talk to a human being.

Dale Vermillion: 00:51:11

And I think that's where we're missing the boat in the industry a lot.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:14

Yep.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:15

I a hundred percent agree.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:16

In, in fact, I, I.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:18

Um, there's, there's a lot of ways that loan officers can do that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:21

And I think you hit the nail on the head that, but they got to ask the question.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:25

Uh, they got to ask, like, what, what's important to you?

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:27

Yes.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:28

Uh, what's important for you to, for, for us to have a 15 minute conversation

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:33

and walk through this, or are you strapped for time and you can do this

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:36

on your own and we'll, we'll sync after you fill out all your information.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:41

But I also think there's another layer where we really can leverage technology.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:45

To help our customers to know that we actually know them, you know, the, the,

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:49

um, at the end of the day, like there, there's a lot of industries that, um, that

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:54

keep customers for a really long time.

Melissa Langdale: 00:51:55

Mortgage has not been quite as successful.

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:01

And for a lot of reasons, really it's, you know, there's a giant

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:04

period of time between their last purchase and the one that they're

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:07

doing, you know, the next time.

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:09

But, but I do think there is an opportunity for, uh, for For lenders

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:13

to continue to think about how do I, how do I keep a lifetime customer?

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:18

Um, and there's, there's ways to leverage technology to pre populate applications

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:23

for them so that all they have to do is kind of go in and, and, you know, just

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:27

check and make sure that the information has not changed since the last time

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:31

that, that you did a loan for them.

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:33

Making that process, there's, there's barriers of going through the application

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:37

process as easy as possible, whether they're doing it online or you're, you're

Melissa Langdale: 00:52:42

doing it on the phone, um, breaking down those can, can make a big difference.

Dale Vermillion: 00:52:47

Well, that's a great way to end the, the, the interview

Dale Vermillion: 00:52:49

because that was gold right there.

Dale Vermillion: 00:52:50

You're absolutely right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:52:51

I mean, the reason we as an industry have not.

Dale Vermillion: 00:52:54

done a great job at retaining our customers because we don't stay in

Dale Vermillion: 00:52:57

contact after the sale, after the close, I, this is, this is probably

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:02

one of the things that I harp on the most with loan officers is look,

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:06

you're not going after one transaction.

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:08

You're going after a lifetime relationship if you're doing it right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:11

And all of those experienced loan officers we talked about earlier that

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:15

have had, you know, incredible careers.

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:17

That's what they did.

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:18

Um, you know, I just recently, uh, for our clients, we do a monthly

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:23

video every month on sales, right?

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:24

Bring a market update.

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:25

And then we talk about things that we think are important in the market.

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:28

And I did an interview with a, a realtor who did over 500 sales in 2022.

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:35

Uh, that's a big time realtor and he actually worked with one of the loan

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:39

officers that I trained and he said, you know, interesting fact, that loan officer

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:44

has stayed in touch when we've worked together for 10 years now and we sat down

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:48

a couple of months ago and we looked at a loan that we closed and we went down the

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:51

family tree and it turned out that that loan was the 51st loan originated from

Dale Vermillion: 00:53:57

the first person that this loan officer had gotten a loan from with that realtor.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:01

Um, 51 loans because she stayed in touch month after month, year after year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:07

She said, I'm going to be your loan officer for life.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:08

And she meant it.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:10

And you know, today loan officers think they're too busy for that,

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:13

but technology can prompt them and guide them so that look, here it is.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:17

It's right in front of you.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:18

Just make a phone call.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:20

No matter what you say, Hey, how you doing?

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:21

How's things going?

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:22

That's good enough.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:23

Just keep it in touch.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:24

We'll make a big difference in that longevity.

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:27

Yeah, absolutely.

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:28

And I love, yeah, the phone call, just, just, hi, how you doing?

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:31

How's your family?

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:32

How are your kids?

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:33

What's, you know, are the same things that are important to you?

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:37

You know, when we first talked important to you today, um, yeah, all

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:41

of those things make a huge difference.

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:43

Yeah.

Melissa Langdale: 00:54:43

How'd

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:43

the home improvements go?

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:44

Did you put the addition on?

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:46

Simple question.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:46

You'll talk for 30 minutes with them about that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:48

And next thing you know, you're saying, you know what, I'm thinking

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:50

about, I need more money to do this.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:52

And here we go.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:52

You're right back into it again.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:54

Awesome.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:55

All right.

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:55

So let's, let's close out with, um, how do people reach out

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:59

to the Mortgage Collaborative?

Dale Vermillion: 00:54:59

Tell us a little bit about, uh, membership, what that

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:02

entails and provides.

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:04

I'm a, I'm a huge fan of what you guys do.

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:06

I certainly, anybody that's watching this, if you're not part of TMC, I

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:10

recommend you become part of TMC.

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:12

Talk to our audience about how they can do that and what do they get when they're

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:16

part of the Mortgage Collaborative.

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:18

Wow.

Dale Vermillion: 00:55:19

Thank

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:19

you so much for that.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:20

Um, by the way, they can always reach out.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:22

They can, they can, uh, we have, we have links on our website,

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:25

the mortgage collaborative.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:26

com, um, that they can, they can reach out on.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:29

They can always email me directly too.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:30

And, and, um, I'll provide your, my LinkedIn profile and they

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:34

can reach out that way too.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:35

So lots of different ways to get in touch with us.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:37

Um, membership is really simple for our, our lenders across the country.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:42

Um, you have one membership for your entire organization, um, have access

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:47

to, you know, two in person conferences, one virtual, like we talked about, but a

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:52

plethora of events throughout the year.

Melissa Langdale: 00:55:55

And I say plethora, um, and it probably doesn't even do it justice.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:00

Every single week, we have four to five events that we put on for our members.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:08

Every week we have working groups, lab labs, we have TMC connect sessions.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:11

We do, you know, the rundown, um, with Rob Christman every Friday and last weekend

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:15

mortgage day, so you can keep in touch on, on, you know, the top news, um, Articles

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:21

that are happening throughout the week.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:22

Like there's, there's a plethora of information that we provide

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:26

to our members on a daily basis.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:29

Um, and then, you know, those in person conferences and the virtual

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:33

conference where we put people into groups and help them to.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:37

To help each other to grow, uh, is, is really pretty special.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:42

Um, and you know, outside of that, we, we actually have started just, just recently,

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:47

um, an advocacy committee where we're building really strong relationships

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:51

with agencies and regulators.

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:53

So that as you know, guideline change as, as policy changes, that

Melissa Langdale: 00:56:58

we can be a voice for our lenders.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:00

Uh, as those sort of things happen and we can put them at the table with

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:05

the decision makers that are, that are changing policy, that are changing

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:08

guidelines and help them to understand regulators and agencies to understand,

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:13

um, what that means actually to consumers.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:16

Cause a lot of our lenders, they're.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:18

boots on the ground with customers every single day.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:21

Um, and it's really important for our regulators and agencies to, to

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:24

have a good sense of what, what their policy changes mean for new customers.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:28

Um, so all those things are in membership.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:30

I could talk about it forever.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:31

I know you want to wrap things up.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:34

Uh, so just reach out, uh, on LinkedIn, our website.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:37

We would love to chat with anybody.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:39

Awesome.

Dale Vermillion: 00:57:40

Well, Melissa, you've been a delight.

Dale Vermillion: 00:57:41

Thank you so much for, for being on batting a thousand, uh, great,

Dale Vermillion: 00:57:45

great, um, advice and wisdom.

Dale Vermillion: 00:57:48

We really appreciate that.

Dale Vermillion: 00:57:49

I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Dale Vermillion: 00:57:52

Uh, and, uh, look forward to, uh, to working with you again, hopefully in 2024.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:57

That sounds fantastic.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:58

Thank you so much for having me.

Melissa Langdale: 00:57:59

This was a pleasure and an

Dale Vermillion: 00:58:00

honor.

Dale Vermillion: 00:58:01

You're welcome.

Dale Vermillion: 00:58:02

God bless.

Dale Vermillion: 00:58:02

And we'll see you soon.