Broker-to-Broker AIME Association of Independent Mortgage Experts

This episode is sponsored by Fuse 2024: New Orleans







Fuse New Orleans presents: Broker to Broker, Episode 193 with host Marc Summers! Today, we learn how to solve the hardest loan scenarios and close on the urgently needed homes faster than ever, all while supporting both underserved communities and your fellow broker peers, all from today's incredible guest, the Chief Sales Officer of Safetrust Mortgage, Mackenzie Barrett.







Having previously worked at UWM, Mackenzie has had a lot of opportunities to work and train among the best in the wholesale industry. He shares his strategies and breaks down how he's able to answer any question and solve any problem: through 'Face to Face' business. Going to the experts and asking for help or the opportunity to shadow them. Reaching directly out to lenders to see if they can work with more difficult scenarios. Meeting with his homebuyers to find out what's going on in their lives outside of their mortgage in order to anticipate their needs and best set them up for long-term success.







Mackenzie shares not just the steps he takes to crack the toughest mortgage nuts, but he shares his approach to how he's able to tackle the entire mortgage industry:







"There's a few things that I kind of focus on, and what I try to do is keep everything bigger than myself." Mackenzie says, "My pillars, if you will, are faith, family and finance. I let my faith lead my decisions and keep me focused on what's important in that time, to really make a difference out there. I come from a background to where life can either be hard two ways: It can be hard, and you try to make something, or it can be hard, and you do nothing. So, I've just taken that challenge and say, I want my life to be hard, but to reap the rewards from taking the risks that I need to take. I was never valedictorian. I don't have a college degree. I've just been a cool guy that loves people. I see myself with the ability to actually do good out here. There's enough bad out there, to where if there's just a few of us that want to do good, there's a big difference that can be made. That's kind of what motivates me and keeps my mindset on how I can be successful, because my success is going to be great, but it's everything I do for everyone else that is really the reward. For someone to say, 'wow, Mackenzie was a part of that and helped those people' that's what I'm more proud of than any award on my desk or dollar number in the bank. What matters is the fact that my kids can be proud to say, their dad's created a positive environment where people collaborate, people help people, and families are getting homes."



















Key Points:







1:22 - Getting Started / Born Into the Industry







4:11 - Lessons from UWM: Relationship Focus







8:31 - Face to Face Business & Processes: Learning from the Experts







21:24 - Serving the Underserved and 0% Down Loans







28:00 - Success = Creating an Environment for Collaboration

This episode is sponsored by RCN Capital







Get the hard-earned customer and client service advice from nearly half a century’s worth of mortgage industry experience, as host Marc Summers is joined by the leadership of Dovetail Mortgage, Chief People Officer Craig Good, and Chief Experience Officer, Robert Benson.







Craig and Robert are an incredible team; they work together to lead Dovetail Mortgage by example, while relying on their incredible mortgage expertise and experience, but also taking full advantage of the freedom allotted to wholesale mortgage professionals. Craig and Robert break down their mindset, mission, vision, and application of an experience-centered business model, while driving home the need to be flexible and always looking for the newest improvements both internally and towards your homebuyers.







“I think we do everything together. We focus on the experience, but that's not only the customer experience, but it's the loan officer, the processor; we're always looking at everything globally, and seeing how we can make it better.” States Craig.







“Everybody knows to focus on customer experience, but you must focus on the other things, too. LOs, Processors, Agents, they're all different personality types. And making sure that they have everything they need. Give them your time and support.” Says Robert, “We always start off communications by saying. Call me, text me. Even this morning, we got a group text from a loan officer. And we both replied. If Loan Officers understand that the support is there, they're going to have that confidence to go set a 2-3 week contract. We got their back. We always figure it out. Because of our support, our average clear to close rate is under ten days, and average touches right now are down to 3.5.”



















Key Points:







1:16 - Getting Started / 50 Years Combined Experience







6:59 - Curating The Best a Client Experience







14:39 - Face to Face Business







22:43 - Trust and Motivation







31:47 - Putting People First, Internally & Externally

This episode is sponsored by Fuse National Conference 2024







In this extremely informative episode of Broker to Broker, host Marc Summers is blown away by the financial wizardry and knowledge of Kurt Brandly, the President of Greenside Capital. Try not to let your jaw drop along with Marc, as Kurt provides the insight that brokers need in order to be the experts for homebuyers.







Perpetually monitoring the raw federal data of the ebbs and flows mortgage market, Kurt takes it upon himself to share his expertise with the rest of the broker community. Kurt regularly posts and provides predictions based on trends and real numbers that the rest of the broker community can use to guide their business, so they don’t have to rely on headlines and articles made to stir up controversy. He also lends his expertise for a look into the future with predictions for the mortgage market from the end of 2024, into 2025. 







All this expertise and resource sharing leans into Kurt’s personal brand, which is his financial expertise, paired with his desire to share it with those that don’t have it. Kurt breaks down his approach:







“I'm passionate about finance. I'm passionate about money. I'm passionate about gaining long term net worth. When I sit a new client down, I of course, do what we're supposed to do. I go over their income, assets, credit, talk about their goals. But, I also want to get their emotional side of why they're buying a home or why they're refinancing. I go through the whole picture and I'll talk about things like, ‘I see that you have a good amount of debt, you have $23,000 in debt right now. You're not really taking care of that. Why not?’ and just be silent, let them open up about what's going on in their life, and they'll really give you the picture. They'll tell you the information you need in order to steer the conversation in the right direction. They’ll say something like ‘I wanted to retire at 55, but I've got this debt and everything, and I don't think that I can do it.’ and here’s where I say ‘Well, if you take cash out, and retire all of that debt right now, then you start taking $200 in your savings, put it into a retirement account, you'll generate $200,000 for your retirement by the time you get to age 55.’ I'm the guy that wants my clients to know that I know a lot about finances, and that I can really guide them in the right direction. That is my personal brand. That is how I'm unique. That is what I bring to the table for clients.”



















Key Points:







1:14 - Getting Started







5:48 - Comprehensive Financial Service







11:11 - Knowledge Share: Personal Finance







16:51 - Future Predictions: 2024 into 2025







22:26 - Personal Brand as A Business Model

This episode is sponsored by Windsor Mortgage







Learn how to survive and thrive in any market by focusing your service on education, as Marc Summers is joined by Chuck Mathewson, Broker Owner of Mathewson Mortgage Capital.







Chuck has had a long, varied career in Mortgage, having started in retail in 2007, to opening his own brokerage after learning on the wholesale benefit. Chuck has the perfect mindset for success in the mortgage industry: The abundance mindset of sharing, educating, and providing service to his community. Chuck educates, then collaborates and strategizes with his clients to give them the best deals possible, with a focus on their long-term finances. 







Chuck breaks down his exact process for how he guides his clients through the current market, via utilizing DPAs: “As more wholesale DPAs are utilized, it's going to open the doors of a lot more brokers and consumers. Brokers will be saying ‘Oh, wow…. Let's start utilizing these more.’ Chuck states “The way I look at them is like this: I do a DPA for a customer today, and when rates come down, they're going to call me back to refinance, because I gave them the strategy for that. So, necessarily you're going to keep saying you’ll stay in touch with them, and a year or two down the road, you’re doing that call. In fact, I just did a DPA appraisal for $50,000 over the purchase price, and they're going to refinance with me one year to the day of closing.”



















Key Points:







1:19 - Getting Started in the Industry







5:54 - Market Comparisons: 2008 to Now







11:49 - DPAs: Wholesale’s Missed Opportunity







19:41 - Service Through Education, not Sales Pitches







25:25 - Finding Your Peers & Mentors

This episode is sponsored by EPM TAG 2024







In this episode of Broker to Broker, host Marc Summers learns how to organically grow a mortgage business $11M a year when he’s joined by Hunter Bolling, Team Lead & Senior Mortgage Broker with Edge Home Finance, and Television host for American Dream TV.







Hunter shares his incredible knowledge and success he’s found in team, brand, and business building, while illustrating that remaining successful means never losing sight that his purpose is to serve his community with the best opportunities possible.







Hunter’s brokerage, H.B. Mortgage Team, grew from $0 to $22 Million in its two years of operation. He breaks down how he did this through aggressive team-building & recruiting, consistent social media presence, and most importantly, how he established and developed his community presence via his branding:







“Even if you're not a team, act like one. People want to be a part of that. My brand isn’t H.B. Mortgage; it's H.B. Mortgage team. That team aspect is so important for people to feel like they're being cared for by multiple people, even if it was just me.” Hunter continues “Share success stories. I posted one on Facebook last week, sharing that we just saved a buyer $6,000 in closing costs compared to retail. That was it. I followed up the next week with the same post, but broke it down with more numbers. This brought me four leads. One was even under contract, and we got another loan for them within an hour, locked them, and sent docs out within an hour of posting while doing other things. One of these leads were friends I knew 15 years ago that just saw my post and like we forgot you were in mortgage.” Hunter concludes “$6,000 is a lot of money that allows people to go buy a new couch, bed or whatever they need, and they have a little one on the way… that's big. You know what you want to offer people. That's the whole reason I got out of retail, was I wanted to know that I was selling the best opportunity for success.” 



















Key Points:







2:08 - From Retail compliance to Wholesale origination







10:16 - Growing from $0 to $22M 







15:05 - Wholesale” Selling the Best Opportunity For Success







25:53 - Hosting American Dream TV







30:55 - Becoming the ‘Positive Light’ in Your Community

This episode is sponsored by Fuse National Conference 2024







In this spirited episode of Broker to Broker, host Marc Summers learns the business benefits of selflessness & support from the Senior Loan Officer at Open Door Lending, Kristin O'Neil! 







Kristin shares her invaluable perspective and strategies, from a career that has seen the best and worst the industry has had to offer. She joined the wholesale channel just two months before the crash of 2008, and has become more resourceful and resilient for it. 







Kristin exemplifies why brokers are such an invaluable resource for their community, as she shares her expertise with assisting Self-Employed borrowers, how the worst of 2008 helped us learn to better serve the current market, and how to get the most out of your local community, and the broker community, through selflessness:  







“Brokers have such a great, great community. I can't say enough, it’s opening doors to things that you would have never done or pushed yourself to do before, like, being on a podcast or being interviewed by MPA, or meeting your congressman. That's just something I would have never considered doing. It's pushed me outside of my comfort zone in so many ways. And I think that's really where you grow, when you feel uncomfortable. When you're scared, that's where you see true growth.” 







Kristin states “a few years ago, I started to pay attention to the people who were really excelling, and they were all the people who have an honest abundance mindset, about giving without expecting anything in return. I think that's 100% true. It's never tit for tat. All the friends that I've met through AIME are people that I could call, like any of my best friends, with any question. We just happen to do the same thing as a job.I can think of a dozen people I could call with any question, and they would answer it without hesitation. And I do the same. So if I've recently worked with a new partner or tried a new program, I try to share as much knowledge as I can because honestly, it comes back tenfold.”



















Key Points:







3:41 - Entering Wholesale in 2008: Timing and Fallout







9:41 - 2008’s Market vs. 2024’s Market







16:46 - Servicing Self-Employed Borrowers







22:11 - Joining the Broker Community







26:09 - Make the Jump: Attending Fuse & Other Broker Events