13 conversations that drive mortgage success

Justin Ulrich
Likewise. You’re like mortgage podcast royalty. Are you number two right now in the podcast space?

Steve Kyles
Well, it’s one, two, and three. There’s a couple of us that are just, we are working hard to continue to make an impact in this space. And I’ll tell you, the key to that, the key to success, and I say it all the time on the episodes too, Justin, is anything worth doing is worth doing badly. Just get started. 

And about six years ago, we just got started with a mic, turned it on, and it’s taken off, man. We’re helping a lot of great loan officers across the country make an even bigger impact. 

Justin Ulrich
I love that. That’s exactly, I say it all the time. You get an idea, just go with it. Get started because you will fall into a pit of paralysis by analysis and planning and strategy, and you’ll never get going.

They say the best time to plant a tree is like 40 years ago. And if not, do it today. 

Steve Kyles
That’s right. Second best is today, man. That’s it.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Well, awesome. If you wouldn’t mind, for some of our listeners who may not know who you are, your background, if you could give just a quick 30 seconds to a minute about your background and how you got to where you are today.

Steve Kyles
Yeah, man. So I’ve been in the business, actually, last week was 24 years. It’s been a great, great journey.

When I got in, I’ll never forget, I grew up from a middle class, but really later in life realized it was kind of a lower middle class. We actually qualified for food stamps in high school, but my dad was so proud. He wouldn’t let us take food stamps, and he was a hard worker.

He just didn’t make a lot of money. And I got to tell you, in our early 20s, I have a twin brother. We started buying and selling investment property, got married at 25. And then I realized this, in our early 20s, we lost everything. We had partnered with somebody. The deal went south.

We ended up with four houses in foreclosure, a quarter million dollars at the age of 25 in debt, and a partner who had walked away and taken a whole bunch of stuff. And so I was really just praying about, okay, God, what do I do? What do I do with the rest of my life in this season?

And I’ll never forget, my wife and I were walking in the evening, and I just knew that God spoke to my heart and said, mortgage. And I didn’t know much about it. I dabbled in real estate and bought and sold investment properties.

But that was a defining moment because from that moment on, I knew that I was called to serve the mortgage industry. I mean, to be candid, I always joke about it. It’s like, I didn’t even know you spelled mortgage with two Gs.

It’s like, all I knew was that I was going to be called to the mortgage industry. And from there, man, I found somebody who was doing mortgages. I pursued them for 90 days.

They finally took me on. And I remember for the first year, I would drive an hour to go to his office, and I just learned. And so I would work mortgages till about lunchtime, and I’d go wait tables at a Mexican restaurant to pay the bills.

And it took me, I think for the first year, I only closed maybe 10, 11 deals. And it was hard. Back then, we were calling out of the newspaper. There was no real plan. There was no strategy. There wasn’t a lot of coaching.

I just knew this. I was called to the industry. There was no plan B, and I’m going to do whatever it took. And then from there, in 2011, I got involved in coaching. It helped us grow and have been able to build some successful teams. In the last 5 years, I was able to take, started from zero, built a group from zero to 100 million in about 3 years.

Then I did it again in about 18 months and took it from zero to 110 million. And then now what I’m doing is I still, we still have teams that do local production. But I’m really drawing people to my sales network at Success Mortgage Partners.

And then 6 years ago, I just had a real desire to help loan officers do more. And I’m very tactical, but I wasn’t hearing a lot of tactical advice. And so I just, I literally plugged up a mic, turned on a video. And really, ours has been primarily audio. And now we’re doing some YouTube. You can find it at The Marketing Animal.

But it just started sharing. What are we doing? How are we getting leads? How are we having conversations? And the podcast is how I met Carl White, the Mortgage Marketing Animals, and 4 years ago became a partner with him. And we help thousands of loan officers every single month.

And it’s one of the largest mortgage coaching companies. And so I coach and I recruit and lead loan officers and branch managers. And man, it’s just been a fun journey. And what we’re doing in this season is helping others unlock. Here’s the reality. We think it’s so complicated.

Justin, I was talking, I talked to a ton of loan officers. And I personally coach right now. This week, I’ve had coaching calls with about, and these are in small group coaching.

But it was, I’d say it was about 150 loan officers just this week. And I’ll tell you this, when you say, I was talking with a loan officer the other day, and 3 years ago, he did $100 million. And he called me and he said, Steve, I’m doing five or six loans a month.

And he said, what’s wrong? I’m doing the same activity, having the same conversations, working the same hours. I’ve got the same realtor relationships. And my business continues to falter. Well, here’s the thing. He’s on an island by himself.

He doesn’t know, he doesn’t get the privilege that I do to be able to see what is it that’s moving the needle. It’s like Jim Collins in the book, Good to Great. He said, it’s not the biggest tweaks that make the greatest impact.

It’s a couple of little things. I think of it like a radio, like an AM or FM radio in a dial. Like if you’re a ham radio operator, it’s the smallest tweak on a dial that brings the clarity of the signal.

And what we’ve been able to uncover is we think it’s all of these things that make the biggest impact. And it’s just a handful. And with that one loan officer, you know what the missing piece was?

He had all the agents, the same agents, but those agents were becoming unqualified. And what we’ve learned is this, all agents, so the biggest change in our industry, and it happens, it has to do with loan officers as well, is that the agents that were doing business a year ago, their business has been falling off. And I’ll tell you why.

Most of them don’t have a process to prospect. The market was the gift. The agents that wake up every day and say, on Monday, I call this group of people. On Tuesday, I call clients that are in process. Wednesday, my database. Thursday, the pre-approved and looking clients.

Agents who have a process are thriving, but agents that were closing eight to 10, 15 deals a year, just kind of doing their thing, they very slowly have begun to lose ground. Matter of fact, I was researching this two weeks ago. 30% of agents do over 80% of the entire industry’s business.

And really it said it was probably closer to 20%. I’m being generous, because there were a couple of sources that I was looking at, and one said 25 to 30. Most said it’s actually closer to 20% doing 80% of the business.

And the problem is we’ve not identified the right agents using technology to see who’s, and for us at the Marketing Animals, we really help our loan officers. Don’t go after any agent that’s not doing at least eight by side transactions a year. And you got to look at their numbers every month.

Because here’s what will happen, Justin, you’re doing the calls, you’re having the conversations, you’re inviting them to an event, you do a lunch, you do a coffee, you’re calling them every week. If they’ve got four transactions, here’s how powerful it is. If they did four by side transactions, which is a lot, because most of them don’t even do that many.

But here’s what will happen. Mathematically, we know that out of every relational lead that an agent gives you, you’ll close one in four. So if they give me four relational leads, I’m going to close one transaction.

So here’s what will happen is somebody who does four by side transactions a year, they can only refer you about two. One of them came with cash, one of them already had a lending relationship, but they got about two they can refer you. Out of the two, remember, we need four to close.

So will I get a deal this year or a deal next year? Can you wait two years to get a relational closing from a… And listen, these are the agents, 24 years. I pulled my agent list this last week, which was so fun. I’ve worked with 1900 agents in conversations, deals, listing agents. And I’m just sitting here thinking.

And so I had my team go through and the amount that are qualified are shocking. I mean, it’s a hundred or less. And so just imagine this.

I like you, I know you, I trust you. At one point you might’ve been qualified, but if I go after 1800 that weren’t, all it is is a lot of activity without result. And the tragedy in this industry in the last two years, I think the number was close to 40 to 50% of loan officers exited the industry.

And it wasn’t because they didn’t know how to prospect. It’s oftentimes they were prospecting the wrong people. And then you know what it does? It makes you say, what’s wrong with me? Maybe I’m not doing enough. And it creates this discouragement and doubt.

And when you have doubt, doubt creates anxiety and anxiety creates a powerlessness to act. And then it’s like, well, I guess I’m going to have to go do something else. And that’s the tragedy is it’s like, man, we’re literally going to have the fourth best year in purchase volume since 2007.

I just saw the stats from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Why are you leaving the industry? It’s like, the greatest opportunity we’ve had, but it’s because they just don’t know.

Nobody told us. And that’s what I love. And that’s really what I’m on mission for is to help loan officers who have a passion for this industry to really uncover just a handful of things that if you just, like this guy who was doing a hundred million dollars, he was only missing one piece.

That’s it. And then as he implements it, you watch, he’s going to be back up to a hundred million dollars because it was the one thing he didn’t know. Everything else, he had it.

He had great process, great prospecting, great consistency, great relationships. Now he’s just going to have to go after the ones that are qualified. And listen, you got to have a process to that.

And we do at the Marketing Animals, that’s what we’re really good at. And also how do I have, what’s the right script in the conversation? And that’s what really got me excited about the Loan Officer Leadership Podcast, which is what I launched that kind of started how to help the industry is because when you see what works, man, let’s share it with others so that they can make an even greater impact as well.

Justin Ulrich
No, that’s, that’s a great, I mean, that was the longest 30 seconds a minute I’ve ever heard. That was, that was incredible. What I love about it is lots of things were popping out in my mind.

What I’d like to know, I guess from you is you said you have a couple of things that you tell people to do to actually move the needle.

Steve Kyles
Yeah.

Justin Ulrich
Like what are some engaging with real estate agents? Great. How, like what are some tactics that you would suggest folks do to actually get in front of those real estate agents to help build trust, build rapport to get the referrals?

Steve Kyles
Hey, Justin, look, and that was, I was talking to somebody this last week and he said, I’ve never heard it so simple. So for all of our loan officers and listen, this would be for real estate agents as well. Anybody in the real estate community.

I’m a data junkie. Like it’s funny. I wasn’t great in math, but I have a strategic mind. It’s just the way God created me. When I see numbers, I see patterns. And let me tell you one of the things we did.

I can tell you one activity that in, and this is specific to loan officers. However, I know the results, if we tested it with agents would be the same because of how data works. Justin, if loan officers and real estate agents will do one thing, then I believe based on the results we’ve seen, I can’t make an income claim, but let me tell you what will happen.

If a loan officer says, I want to close eight transactions a month, you only have to do one thing. One thing. That’s it. You want to know? 

Justin Ulrich
What is it? Tell me what it is.

Steve Kyles
I have 13 conversations with people in and around your sphere of influence. And so let me, let me define this. Agents that you’ve known, like in trust, you’ve worked with in the past, listing agents, buyer’s agents, title company, insurance agents, friends and family, sphere of influence, past clients, clients in process, past client database, and pre-approved clients.

If anybody, you made a wedding list, you made a list of 250, 300 people and people like, you can’t do it. Yeah, you can. There’s an app called Covve export. It’ll export all the phone numbers you’ve ever saved in your phone. I did it again just 30 days ago. I had 7,000 contacts in my phone and it’ll pull it out as a CSV file.

And then you just pull all of your relationships. But listen, we did a test last week in the marketing animals. We had hundreds of loan officers across the country, East coast, West coast, big producers, little producers, big teams, little teams, small markets like Ball Ground, Georgia with one stoplight, Houston, Texas with 5 million, California, Ohio, Nevada, Atlanta, the most diverse sampling we’ve ever done.

Listen to this 4,197 outbound calls to a warm market. We had 1,828 talk tos. We had 323 relational referrals. So let me tell you what the data tells us because see when you’re doing data like Barna group and all these big Gallup polls, they want diverse groups. They want very, very, very, divert.

Like it’s not segment. We didn’t just go to Houston, Texas. We went East coast, West coast with hundreds of loan officers with hundreds of data points.

And here’s what it told us. This is, and look, the data is, and that’s why it’s like, here’s what I love too. And I know we’re talking about a whole lot, but I want to make it easy for everybody listening. What I love about data. I’ll never forget. My mantra used to be nobody will outwork me.

Well, the problem with that is this. I actually own the website grow and grind, which is so funny because I don’t believe in grinding. I believe in now being strategic with your time and leveraging instead of busy work, being effective, not busy.

And here’s what we learned. If I call a warm spear of influence, I’ve got, I will get 44% on average people answer the phone. If I get 15, my phone showing up is spam. Caller at, you know, it’s showing up like Houston instead of Steve Kyle’s something’s wrong. 

Like if on average, I’m not getting about a 40% answer rate on a warm market. I need to figure out what’s going on. I got to fix it. Here’s the second thing we figured out. 18% of every warm conversation, when you strategically asked for the business in a cool way, led to a relational referral. 

And Justin, let me tell you this. There’s a difference between a bot referral and a relational referral. A relational for referral is, Hey man, listen, you’re looking to buy a house. Let me have you call my friend, Justin. He’s going to take great care of you.

And those referrals close one in four. Mathematically for us, we do hundreds of loans a month and we’re seeing about a 24% closing ratio with the warm referral. So here’s what it tells you.

The only thing you have to do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday is five days a week, have 13 warm conversations where you ask for the business. You’ll get two leads a day, 10 leads a week, 40 leads a month, and you’ll fund at minimum eight loans.

And if you use what my, our teams across the country see, I did one in five close, but for us, it’s even one in four. The numbers actually show you’ll close 10 to 12 units a month. And the only thing you have to do, and this is what we tell people all the time, like we help them.

I do a coaching group called the Alliance. And so it’s so cool because I tell them like when we’re building your routine, the number one key to accountability and discipline is this. And I did a massive study about, you know, discipline, because there’s a big difference between not motivated and disciplined.

Discipline is where you win. Well, the number one characteristic of discipline is simply routine. What do I do every single day? And here’s the way we help people. If you’ll put yourself first, so these are the three orders that matter. And I know I got a lot to say, but, but I think it’ll help.

There’s, in your routine, the problem is most people say, I’m exhausted. I’m burned out. I can’t keep going, man. I’m so tired of doing this. Well, if that were the truth, go take a nap, take a three-day weekend, you’ll be fine. But that’s not the problem. The problem is you’re not exhausted. I’m not overwhelmed. The problem is you’re depleted.

You’re depleted because you’re not doing anything to recharge you. The order of what you do matters. And so, number one, take care of yourself. Get up in the morning, pray, exercise, read, do something every day that recharges you. Number two, make your family a priority. And listen, we coach single moms, single dads.

I just got to tell you, our industry says, no, you can’t take off at 2.30. Why not? Your business should serve you. Take off at 2:30. Build it in your calendar. Go pick up your kids from two to four, and then put an hour of follow-up from four to five. Your family has got to be your second priority that is scheduled in your calendar. And then number three is this, you have to do two hours of outbound prospecting every day.

And listen, if you can have 13 hellos in one hour, then do it an hour. Use a dialing system. Use technology. But the number one indicator of whether or not you’ll be successful is, are you having real conversations? Hey, and listen, in our coaching program, let me tell you what I did. I got a guy, Jared Manley.

He’s part of the network. And I do this eight-week intensive coaching. And his number one goal was this, I’m having tons of conversations, but I’m not getting a lot of results.

And I said, well, what are we focusing on? He said, I’m not asking for the business. For eight weeks, it was how many outbound calls, how many talk-to’s, and how many times did you ask for the business?

When we started, he was at about 20%. When we ended over the eight weeks, he was at 95%. And the week we ended, he put five loans in his pipeline.

And the only thing he did different was ask for the business. See, because what’s happening is, Justin, we’re having conversations and it’s like, hey man, great to talk to you. Hey, well, listen, just if there’s anything, here’s the way most people will end. If there’s anything I could do for you, just keep me in mind. All right, Justin, have a good one. 

Watch this. Justin, you’re an agent. We got a great relationship. We’ve worked together in the past. I’ve fallen off top of mine because I haven’t been consistent in following up. Hey, Justin, man, it’s been great to reconnect with your brother. Hey, before we get off the phone, let me ask you something.

Who do you have today that I could help you get pre-approved and make sure it’s a good use of your time?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, that’s great. It shows that you’re giving value to them. And help get them approved.

Steve Kyles
Yeah. It’s the only difference. Hey, and I’m telling you, if you will talk to them and you will ask for the business, here’s two more and I’ll give you two more real simple scripts.

When you got a friend or you got clients in process, it’s like, we call it our three by three. Hey, if you’ve got any friends, family, or coworkers looking to buy, sell, or refinance, could I count on you to give me their information? I’d love to help another great family just like you.

Here’s another one. Hey, listen, and man, there’s only about four scripts that if you know these four, like one of them is, hey, listen, who do you know that you think I should know or that you feel like you could make an introduction to for me? I’d love to meet somebody that you think I should know.

And then when you’re done with that, just say, hey, Justin, before we get off as well, is there anything I can do for you? And it’s like, when you start building this into the language of what you’re doing and saying, now your activity is not busy work. It’s activity that’s leading to results.

And for most people listening today, you’re doing some activity and you’re saying, here’s where guilt and shame and false belief and doubt come in. And see what people don’t realize, Justin, is my past experience is framing my future expectation. I’ve done that. That doesn’t work. The market’s slow. Well, let me tell you this.

Sharon Wofford in Ball Ground, Georgia has been working a plan for the last four months when she joined my team here at Success Mortgage Partners. And she was doing a couple million dollars a month. This month will fund almost $6 million.

Her city has one stoplight. It’s not your market. It’s not your city. It’s not the market’s slow. The NBA just put out a report. It’ll be the fourth best years in purchase money since 07. It’s not. It’s the excuses because we didn’t know that the activity alone is not enough. You know what we did last week?

We did our 50 Calls Blitz. We did something with our teams here at the Marketing Animals. You know what it really, one of the take, and I recorded this on the Loan Officer Leadership Podcast.

I did three consecutive episodes of what, I did 50 conversations in one day last Tuesday. And one of my 13 takeaways was this, calls alone are not enough. You have to have a call to action.

And we want to make it so complicated. And listen, I’m a fan because I know what you guys do with the targeted ads. I’m a fan. Let me tell you this. We do targeted Facebook ads. Hey, I’ll tell you a fun story.

My wife is getting back into originating as well. And so we launched her targeted ads this week, literally yesterday as we’re recording this. Her first day, she got a relational lead from somebody she’s known, but was like, Oh yeah.

Oh my gosh, Stephanie, let me talk to you. And I’m telling you there, there, I believe in it. You need to be warming up every like, look, I got a database of seven, like it was like 7,000 people on my phone. Get that info, put it in a list, have you guys help them with it.

Do targeted ads. And for $5 a day, you can literally be the mayor of your city. So we believe in technology. We’ve got CRM that has AI powered and literally you can call into it and the AI attendant will answer your phone and book your appointment. We believe in it. We use it.

But I’ll tell you this, that is what I call, it’s a conversion maker, Justin. So see what happens is I was working with a loan officer. He’s been a loan officer since the eighties.

Crazy, crazy. Imagine he’s been doing it that long. And I said, and he’s like, he’s, he’s called, he’s known as the godfather here where I live in a city of five, I’m in Houston and he’s the godfather and man, he is still closing millions of dollars a month.

And he’s been a friend for years. And I said, Ken, Hey brother, what, what’s the number one? What’s the number one thing that you do to continue to close several?

Because he’s, I want to say, and I’m, and I kid you not, I think he’s like a, he’s at least 70, but it may be 80 years old. And I said, Ken, first off, when are you going to retire? He’s like, oh, you never retired.

And I said, well, you’re still closing $2 to $5 million a month. What’s it? And you’ve been doing this since the eighties. What’s the number one thing you do? And you know what he told me?

I made phone calls and I said, so you’re telling me that since the eighties, what was the number one thing you did in the eighties? I made phone calls. We try to get away from all of this and we try to say that, and here’s the way we always coach. Your calls are number one. Technology is a conversion maker.

What we find, and you guys probably find it too, is that technology will increase your conversion about 15%. And listen, that’s what you’re looking for. That’s, that’s where the money and the gold is.

Cause it’s like just free money because when you’re closing that extra 15%, that 15% doesn’t come with a whole lot of expense. Cause you, your expenses are really outlaid in the first few loans you close. A two to five more loans a month, man. That is a massive impact in your family budget. And so I just want to encourage everybody today. Don’t make it super complicated.

It is about 13 conversations every single day with a true call to action where you’re doing it in a cool way in your own voice, tracking it to make sure you’re staying accountable. Hey, and if you don’t mind, because this would be a cool place to do it.

Like if you’re looking for tactics, go to LoanOfficerLeadership.com, my podcast. But more more than that, we have a really cool thing that Carl White, myself, a friend of ours, Frank Gray. There’s a whole group of us, Kristen Simpson.

We all we do this morning show. It’s called the Loan Officer Breakfast Club. And listen, we we invest a lot to do it. It costs us a lot. Six figures a month. I mean, it’s it’s a commitment for us.

But we have anywhere a low day, five, six hundred loan officers, a high day, eight, nine hundred loan officers a day. That’ll show up on the Loan Officer Breakfast Club. And you just go to LoanOfficerBreakfastClub.com.

Our community has about twenty one, twenty two thousand loan officers in Facebook. But here’s what we do. We just come together Monday through Friday, nine thirty.

I’m sorry, eight thirty to nine a.m. Eastern. I’m in so like in Central and seven thirty to eight thirty me Pacific. It’s five thirty to six. And I know it’s early, but it’s a free gift. Doesn’t cost you anything but to show up. And we talk about tactics. 

Like today, we had Owen Lee talking about the big merger with Redfin and Rocket. Now that’s an impact. But we talk about what’s happening in the market. We talk about what’s winning today. We talked about refining your Google, you know, your Google. What is it where you go to find people in your business?

Justin Ulrich
Google My Business. 

Steve Kyles
Yeah. And so it’s like how to making sure that that’s like done correctly so that that it’s really attracting the right people. And it’s like from sales to practical.

Yesterday, Chris Jonestone rolled out the A.I. attendant that can literally answer your phone, book your appointment and send follow up emails and text automatically. And so it’s like we’re looking at all of these things that are impacting loan officers on a daily basis. And we’re just having great conversations.

So LoanOfficerBreakfastClub.com. Get involved in our community because, Justin, here’s the other thing. Most loan officers and I talk to not only do I coach personally a couple of hundred loan officers a week.

Then we’re in front of several thousand a week. And that doesn’t include the podcast and the YouTubes. But then also one of the things, I lost my train of thought, man.

Oh, I talked to loan officers. I talked to anywhere on a low week. I’d say low week, 10 to 15, a normal week, 20, high week, 30 loan officers individually every single week. You know, the number one thing I hear: “I’m alone on an island by myself.”

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Steve Kyles
And that’s why we created the Loan Officer Breakfast Club is because you don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to be on an island. And our goal is to help make our industry better. So I hope that helps.

Justin Ulrich
Perfect. That was extremely helpful information. I had a list of questions to ask. And you answer everything.

Steve Kyles
You don’t even go through them, man.

Justin Ulrich
You know, one of the things that I wanted to give you a shout out for is your podcast is incredible. You guys have like 400 some episodes jam-packed with tactics like you’re talking about. I would highly encourage anybody to go check it out.

The Loan Officer Leadership Podcast. Like you said, LoanOfficerLeadership.com. But all that to say, you are an absolute marketing animal. So it is the correct name. And I thought it might be fun to throw you into AI as an animal.

Steve Kyles
My man. I like it. Hey, you need to email me that. That’s hey, email that to me. I’d love that. Dude, that is so good.

Justin Ulrich
I’ll send it over to you for those. The most serious looking face and the most ridiculous bear outfit.

Steve Kyles
I will take, hey, I’ll post it in our group. And I’ll say, come on, marketing animals. It’d be so fun. So hey, thank you for your time, man. It’s been great to be on the show with you today.

Justin Ulrich
So it’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate you taking the time to join us in the lab. And for those who are listening, thank you so much for listening. It’s always fun to grow our audience. So thank you so much. Steve, it’s been awesome.

Steve Kyles
Hey, listen, remember this. Anything we’re doing is worth doing badly. Just get started.

Justin Ulrich
As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.