Scott Groves: Coaching For Loan Officers, By Loan Officers
Guests: Scott Groves, Daniel Ramsey
Recorded: October 31, 2019
Excerpt
Ready to learn the insider tips, tricks, and best practices to take your mortgage & loan business to the next level? Looking for strategies to fill your pipeline with qualified deals? Look no further!
Learn these skills & more with Scott Groves, the Co-Founder of Consolidated Coaching – a tactical, strategic, street-level coaching program FOR Loan Officers, BY Loan Officers. Scott is a seasoned mortgage & loan industry veteran who built an innovative coaching model to help industry colleagues refine their skills & build successful mortgage businesses.
In this webinar, you’ll learn insider secrets to loan industry success, along with:
- Learn from a $100m producer who is also managing a $300m branch
- Lead Generation tools that actually work with no gimmicky “hacks,” “Facebook Funnels,” or “Trade Secrets.”
- Get two coaching worksheets that will change your business (and maybe even your life!)
For over 15 years, Scott Groves has been providing quality mortgage products to his clients on the Eastside of Los Angeles. By fostering close relationships with real estate agents, buyers, and sellers, Scott has built a career to provide exceptional service from application to closing. His business philosophy has always been a simple creed: do the right thing for the client and serve his REALTOR® Community.
Now, Scott is sharing his experience with mortgage & loan professionals across the country with a ground-breaking coaching new methodology that combines the best lead-generation tactics, accountability practices, and team-building techniques to enhance your professional growth & business success.
Transcript
00:00:07:05 – 00:00:28:11
Daniel Ramsey
Hey, everybody. Daniel Ramsey here with MyOutDesk and I’m excited we got Scott Groves here. And what’s cool about Scott is he’s a mortgage professional. He’s a coach speaker author. I have his book. I have his shirt. I’m wearing my shirt today, though. I should be wearing his shirt. And Scott, thanks for being here today.
00:00:28:16 – 00:00:43:24
Scott Groves
No, no, thanks, man. I really appreciate it. I know this group is going to go or this video is going to go out to my coaching clients and some of your people and whatnot live on Facebook. So if you’re watching this at any time in the future, thanks for taking 20, 30 minutes of your time to tune in and listen to Daniel and I riff on something I don’t even know what yet.
00:00:44:06 – 00:01:08:19
Daniel Ramsey
Well, we’re going to talk about everything mortgage, like how to build a real mortgage practice. And that’s what’s unusual about what you’ve done is you’ve got a coaching platform and a mortgage company, and so you’re one of the people who are actually in it, living it every single day. And so we’re absolutely going to extract all the value that you have it out of that brain and drop it for the audience.
00:01:08:19 – 00:01:15:14
Daniel Ramsey
So I’m I’m excited for that. But let’s start with how you got started. Like how what’s your origin story like? How did you get into the mortgage world?
00:01:15:23 – 00:01:34:01
Scott Groves
I just can’t I can’t tell the same boring origin story like I was. I was in it. I was in it for nine years after I got the army out of you know, rode the wave up at Washington Mutual, crashed and burned like everybody else, you know, read the read the foreword of the book. Yeah, I had a forward worth reading.
00:01:34:01 – 00:01:52:16
Scott Groves
I basically, you know, almost bankrupt, half a million dollars dead, everything sacked, living on anybody’s couch. That was so many loan officers in 2009, 2010. I just feel like it’s the it’s the bad DC version of the Origin story. It’s not the really solid Marvel Origin story. So, you know, that’s just kind of what happened to everybody that was in the business.
00:01:52:16 – 00:02:14:09
Scott Groves
And then 2009 started to rebuild my business. You know, thank goodness I knew how to read tax returns because I think a whole slew of loan officers got cut out in 2010, 2011, when they realized they couldn’t do standard income anymore. Yeah. So so it just started rebuilding all purchase centric and then, you know, doubled my business from 2010 to 11 to 12 to 13 to 14.
00:02:14:22 – 00:02:40:07
Scott Groves
Work for some great companies. And now I’m now partnered up with a gentleman named Justin Vail and kind of just doing our thing. We’re out of Los Angeles, California. So the the loan amounts help a lot with the volume, although our payout for a loan is a little bit lower, but we’ll end up doing my business part. And I wound up doing about 200 loans this year for like 120 million, which is a really good living out here in California.
00:02:40:07 – 00:02:44:21
Scott Groves
Sometimes after taxes in California, as you know, that’s about $12. That will be the.
00:02:45:00 – 00:02:46:05
Daniel Ramsey
Neck and minimum wage.
00:02:46:23 – 00:03:02:13
Scott Groves
Wage funding, 120 million a year. But that’s okay. Yeah. And then, you know, a few years ago when I was at a company called Movement Mortgage, I was their number one guy by volume. And you know how this goes, Daniel. When you’re successful, people start calling you, Hey, can I get 5 minutes? How do you do this? How do you do that?
00:03:02:13 – 00:03:21:10
Scott Groves
What are your thoughts on that? And those five minute calls turn into half hour calls and then your whole week is gone. So accidentally, about five years ago, I said, All right, well, why don’t we get the 20 people that keep calling me on a Thursday morning call and then that’s evolved into a coaching program over the last five years, and it’s funny, it’s actually profitable.
00:03:21:14 – 00:03:37:14
Scott Groves
I really started it just as a way to have a tax write off against my W-2 income and be able to write off all these personal development and professional development courses. I was going to and then who knew there was actually an appetite for kind of what we were doing in our space? So yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s basically how the last 20 years have gone in a nutshell.
00:03:37:20 – 00:03:47:19
Daniel Ramsey
That’s awesome. Talk to me about that. The reason you did your first loan are like, why did you get into it? Like, I want to hear that that original, like, I’m going to be a mortgage guy.
00:03:47:23 – 00:04:08:06
Scott Groves
All right. So this is actually kind of a funny story. I got out of the Army and at the time, Washington Mutual had this this deal for veterans where if you were going to college, part of your college full time, you only had to work part time at Washington Mutual and you would get full benefits. So a ex-girlfriend of mine or somebody from high school called me and she’s like, Hey, I’m an assistant branch manager at Washington Mutual.
00:04:08:12 – 00:04:26:14
Scott Groves
You should come be a teller. You only have to work like 20 hours a week and you get full benefits and we’ll help reimburse you for some college stuff. So I went, I did that and I was going to Passaic College using my GI Bill and whatnot. And about 60 days into being a teller, my good friend and the assistant manager came to me and she’s like, Well, Scott, here’s the thing.
00:04:26:22 – 00:04:46:08
Scott Groves
You’re really good at talking to clients, and we know that you’re not stealing because you went and steal a buck here, $0.37 here, but you’re always out of balance on your cash drawer. Yeah. Come on, guys. Clearly, I’m not stealing, like, $0.37 a day like that really matter. And they’re like, yeah, that really matters when you’re a bank teller.
00:04:46:15 – 00:05:03:01
Scott Groves
And so she said, We can either fire you or we can promote you into this program to learn how to do loans because you’re really good at talking to clients. And so when it was between a promotion and a fire and I took the promotion, started doing loans in 2000 and kind of rode that way of all the way up and then crashed like everybody else.
00:05:03:02 – 00:05:05:17
Scott Groves
And yeah, you’re riding it back up again. We’ll see what happens.
00:05:05:24 – 00:05:26:13
Daniel Ramsey
That’s crazy. Okay, so let’s let’s dove in. What? When you’re helping somebody consider what it would take to double, you know, their mortgage business. Like how do you focus in and what are some of the keystone habits or things that you always look for and or help somebody implement for a mortgage professional like yourself?
00:05:27:01 – 00:05:52:17
Scott Groves
Yeah, it’s a great question. And the first thing that we always want to do is try to focus on somebody’s strengths, right? So when I when I’m coaching in private, coaching clients and then I try to extract this into our more, you know, online bigger group coaching program is if you’re in any sales profession and you’re not doing the amount of business that you think you should be doing, it’s usually because you have a strength and you have a weakness and everybody needs their clients to get to know who they are.
00:05:53:01 – 00:06:13:17
Scott Groves
Trust them enough to send them that first deal. Sorry. Excuse me. Know who they are like them when they have to send in that first deal and then trust them based on how that deal went in order to send them more deals. So I always ask people like, Hey, what are you best at? Are you good at getting out there and meeting the people and doing that guerilla marketing to get people to at least know that your name is Scott Groves, the lender.
00:06:13:17 – 00:06:35:02
Scott Groves
If that’s the case, let’s double down on those efforts and then let’s build a coaching curriculum to help you in the. Okay, now they’re going to like you. Now they’ve got a trust you stage or a lot of times people will say like, Scott, I’m really strong at my loan process. I, you know, I know the guidelines. Once somebody works with me, they want to continue working with me and they trust me enough, you know, that’s my strength.
00:06:35:03 – 00:06:52:22
Scott Groves
So then we just kind of, you know, reverse engineer, like, all right, well, if by the time you get somebody in the pipeline, they love working with you, how do we get more people in the pipeline? So it’s really picking that point of strength and then kind of building around that verses. You know, a lot of coaches are, though, kind of what’s the old saying?
00:06:53:01 – 00:07:08:14
Scott Groves
Beatings will continue until morale improves. It’s like, let me whip you and flog you into doing the three or four things I think you should do. So double your business. And that’s not really what this is about. It’s about finding what you’re good at, building on that and then, you know, finding either other people or other systems to supplement that weakness.
00:07:08:14 – 00:07:22:14
Scott Groves
So that’s kind of the first stage. And then there’s just the good old generic, you know, daily activities calling that compound effect stuff to start making your business better. So, you know, that’s kind of where we start and then that’s what our jumping off point is.
00:07:22:22 – 00:07:44:06
Daniel Ramsey
Right? What’s the in your business today? What are some of the secret sources that you employ to drive that, you know, 120 million, 200 deals? That’s a big deal. It’s a lot of mortgages in California. That’s a that’s a lot. So what are some of the things in your business that you rely on to drive revenue and really have you guys operate at a high level like you are?
00:07:44:19 – 00:08:06:02
Scott Groves
So for only $999.99, I will give you the secret script that changes your life. The Five Secrets to Mortgage Origination. You know, I tell people all the time, Daniel, I give this keynote speech on lead generation. And what I do is I have everybody in the audience. I say, hey, if you’re married, girlfriend, boyfriend, baby, mama, booty call, whatever you want to call it.
00:08:06:02 – 00:08:28:06
Scott Groves
You have somebody special in your life. Stand up. Just about everybody stands up. And then I say, Okay, tell me if this story has ever happened to you. And now I’ve got a whole audience of several hundred people standing. I’m like, Tell me this ever happened to you, your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever comes home and says, Oh, hey, you know Cousin Jimmy or Blanca at the office or Debbie, my college roommate, they just bought a house.
00:08:28:06 – 00:08:46:06
Scott Groves
We should go over there and check it out or go to the housewarming party or go to pool party. Now you’re looking at your spouse saying, wait a minute, why don’t you get a shot at the loan? I’ve I’ve met that person. I’ve had dinner with them. I’ve picked up a tab here and there. They have power. And so then when I ask the audience that 9/10 95% of the audience sits.
00:08:46:10 – 00:08:46:22
Daniel Ramsey
Down.
00:08:46:23 – 00:09:07:11
Scott Groves
Just because everybody’s had that experience, right? Where a product you sell, somebody very close to your spouse has bought that product and not use you. And what I tell people is, guys, you’re not even famous enough with the person you’re sleeping with to get all of their referrals. Why are you going out and spending thousands of dollars on Facebook ads and fliers?
00:09:07:11 – 00:09:28:03
Scott Groves
And, you know, I’ve had loan officers before tell me things like, well, if I could just get the downpayment assistant flier with the right color, that would really double my business. I’m like, You’re insane. You’re focusing on all the wrong things. Yeah. So in our coaching program, we have a couple of things like I think to make that first 200 to 250000 in sustainable, repeatable business.
00:09:28:10 – 00:09:55:03
Scott Groves
Yep, you’ve got to be famous with 50 people. And what I mean by that is if you’re famous with 50 people, you know, famous with your spouse, it means when the subject of real estate or mortgages or finances come up at work, they ask to interject you into the conversation. You know, if you have a dental hygienist or an insurance broker or a CPA, if you’re giving people money and those people talk to other people, they should be giving you a referral from time to time.
00:09:55:20 – 00:10:10:23
Scott Groves
Now, look, this gets a little awkward because some people think that we go down that road of I only have user relationships, you know, I’m only friends with people that refer any business. But you and I are a perfect example. Like, Yeah, you’ve done a really good job of keeping in touch with me and becoming famous with Scott Groves.
00:10:11:00 – 00:10:40:05
Scott Groves
So I’ve been able to refer you over five or six people because when the idea of staffing comes up, you know, i just know daniel is famous in my mind when it comes with anything. h.R. Staffing, you know, scaling, anything like that. And so if you’re famous with at least 50 people and I’ve got a whole worksheet on how they can fill this out, you know, ten realtors, ten listing agents, ten CPAs like that in and it’s an it in and of itself will lead to a couple hundred thousand dollars in income.
00:10:40:11 – 00:10:58:02
Scott Groves
And then it’s just a matter of using something like this. And I don’t care if you use mine, you know, you can send us out. It’s just a matter of using something like this call tracker to make sure that you’re strategically staying in front of them. So there’s no secret sauce. There’s no magic script, there’s no Facebook funnel, there’s no Instagram ad that’s going to make loans fall from the sky.
00:10:58:07 – 00:11:13:20
Scott Groves
Because guess what? Quicken has that market just unlocked down? Yeah. So so as soon as you, the standalone loan officer, can compete with rocket mortgage, then good, go buy some funnels and shit. Until then, you know, stay in touch with people, you know, pick 50 people you want to be famous one.
00:11:14:06 – 00:11:34:05
Daniel Ramsey
You know, I heard somebody a little twist on that. It was pick 50 people who are also salespeople. People if you go to a CPA who’s like, well, I’m I don’t know if I can give you your name out as a recommendation. I need to give you give my clients three other recommendations. I can never say anything personal.
00:11:34:12 – 00:11:45:09
Daniel Ramsey
That’s not the person you want. And you’re 50 people. You know, you need people who you can be famous with who are also business owners, and it will be reciprocal in the relationship, you know?
00:11:45:18 – 00:12:00:07
Scott Groves
Yeah, if my CPA said some shit like that, I would say, okay, cool. Then what I’m going to do this is the CPI paint personally, I would say, okay, cool, that what I’m going to do is I’m going to do my taxes to three CPAs. You guys do all the work and send me the final numbers for my return is going to be.
00:12:00:12 – 00:12:23:14
Scott Groves
Then I’ll pick one of you go. I’ll pay for your services and send in my tax returns. This idea, this this urban legend that people have to give out three cards is 100% BS. It’s complete malarkey. There is no there is no saving grace for giving somebody three names of people that are shady or there is nothing negative about giving one name of somebody that’s ethical.
00:12:23:18 – 00:12:37:03
Scott Groves
And so what I always tell people, because I get this all the time, I’m sorry, go down this rabbit hole, but this is a love it. I tell realtors all the time, I’m like, Hey, that’s cool. Whatever you have to do to feel comfortable. But just so you know, that’s not that’s not a law. I’d be happy to send you some information on that.
00:12:37:11 – 00:13:01:21
Scott Groves
And then number two, let’s just take this this to its logical conclusion. I remember having this conversation one time with my buddy Dan. I’m like, Dan, do you think if you give out three loan officers to your potential buyer and one of those three loan officers screws up, do you think the client’s going to say, you know what, Dan, you gave me three options and clearly I picked wrong?
00:13:01:21 – 00:13:19:00
Scott Groves
I’m not upset with you. I’m just upset with the lender. Of course not. They’re going to say, Dan, one of the guys you gave me screwed things up. You messed up. You’re messed up because this is the thing that the realtor always thinks they’re trying to avoid. They think they’re trying to avoid the conversation like, well, if you screwed up and you’re the only name I gave them, then I’m in trouble.
00:13:19:07 – 00:13:39:18
Scott Groves
I don’t care if you give them 100 names if if you gave them the lender on your list and they picked one of those lenders. Mr. Mrs. Realtor, you’re in trouble. So Mr. or Mrs. Realtor what’s in it for you, Dan for example? Dan Wouldn’t it be much nicer if you only had to make one phone call a week to review your entire pipeline, go over everybody that’s preapproved, all your deals under contract.
00:13:39:18 – 00:13:56:24
Scott Groves
Isn’t that easier than trying to chase down three different lenders? Try to keep straight who’s doing what. Like give me a chance. Give me an app that with all your clients, I won’t let you down and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. But it’s worth having the conversation because I say this idea of giving out three lenders like I won’t even work with those people anymore.
00:13:57:14 – 00:14:10:05
Daniel Ramsey
So when you when you are reaching out to these real estate folks and these 50 famous, was that your pitch right there is like, look, I’m going to take care of you people. Give me one shot and and I’ll do a good job.
00:14:12:00 – 00:14:34:11
Scott Groves
Yes and no. And I preface that because, of course, we always need that first shot at the deal, too. Yes. We all we always need that first at bat to shine and do a great job. But I always and hesitant to recommend that because we know what happens. Right. You go out there, you put your name out to a bunch of people and there ends up being this negative self-fulfilling prophecy.
00:14:34:11 – 00:14:54:03
Scott Groves
So if you put yourself out, as you know, give me your poor, your weak, your tired, your bad credit scores, the people that have been turned down five times, more often than not, guess what? Every other lender wants to make money. Every other lender wants to close deals. So if a deal is declined or a deal can’t work out or somebody can’t figure out how to pre-approve a client, there’s a reason.
00:14:54:03 – 00:15:15:17
Scott Groves
Chances are the deck is stacked against, you know, if you’re really seasoned or you have some secret sauce or you have some great product offering through your company, great, I expect you to be out there talking about that and saving deals with this idea that, you know, excuse my language, but this idea that you take everybody else’s dog shit deals and turn those into raving fans, that’s usually not the case.
00:15:15:17 – 00:15:36:03
Scott Groves
Usually what we do is we take the dog shit deal, we piece it all together, we fight the fight. We find a way to close the deal. And because we close two days late, the realtor is like, Yeah, I’m going to stick with my guy. You didn’t do a great job or the client’s posturing. You know, we’ve all had those deals where it’s like there should be a parade in the street for Scott GROSS figuring out this financing.
00:15:36:03 – 00:15:57:09
Scott Groves
And instead I’m giving you a three star review because, well, we had to change the date of our movers. And it’s like you shouldn’t even own a house right now. So when I ask for that first at bat, I always preface it of like, hey, if, if our first couple at bats are going to be the tough deals, I need some grace, you know, tight contingencies.
00:15:57:15 – 00:16:20:04
Scott Groves
The closing date might be a little bit fluid. I might have to have your client pay off some debt to qualify, but I’m going to set those guidelines upfront right away. Yeah, because any lender watching this knows that, you know, in the first day of escrow or under contract, if you’re not in California on receipt in the first day of the contract or the first day of the pre-approval, anything that I can discover is the client’s problem is the client’s fault.
00:16:20:17 – 00:16:32:15
Scott Groves
On day ten of the transaction, anything I discover that’s my fault. So we better have it dialed in upfront if we’re going to be winning relationships or taking those tough deals. So yeah, long answer to your easy question as usual.
00:16:32:15 – 00:17:01:10
Daniel Ramsey
Sorry. No, it’s great. I was with another friend of mine last week and he’s a title guy and I made the mistake because I’m a real estate broker. Love. I was a mortgage guy at 1.2 back when it was easy. Right, right, right. And I made the mistake as an agent of not understanding how much value I brought to my lender, my title person, my escrow person, you know, like I just gave these guys business because I liked them.
00:17:01:10 – 00:17:21:20
Daniel Ramsey
Like, literally I worked with my escrow gal because she was awesome and we’d go drinking together and we had a lot of mutual friends and I didn’t realize that I had brought more than $1,000,000 a year to her business in revenue. Like I had no clue. And so I was talking to this title guy and he’s like, I do.
00:17:21:20 – 00:17:40:14
Daniel Ramsey
I partner with some of the best real estate people in the country. And then we we use the money that we have together to go grow each other’s business. So I’m curious, in the mortgage space, what can you do and what have you been doing to really partner with real estate people to really help each other grow over time?
00:17:41:07 – 00:18:07:11
Scott Groves
Yeah, you know, this is a really tough conversation because unfortunately, starting with Zillow, cold calling, literally every realtor in the country into every realtor, you know, was beat into submission and bought some Zillow ads or block them and said, don’t ever call me again. Starting with Zillow. Zillow really set this precedent of realtors should have a usury relationship with lenders.
00:18:07:16 – 00:18:19:02
Scott Groves
Yep. So, you know, Zillow would call realtors over and over and over again for years saying, hey, you need to sign up for Zillow ads. And if you have a lender who’s worth a shit, he’ll pay half of the ad spend.
00:18:19:13 – 00:18:20:06
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, well.
00:18:20:06 – 00:18:37:01
Scott Groves
There’s a couple of things. We could go down the rabbit hole like, is that really risk but compliant? Because let’s be honest, most lenders out there who are paying the Zillow ad spend it wasn’t just to advertise on Zillow. It was with the expectation of like, hey, I’m doing this is a little bit of a kickback to get your other business.
00:18:37:01 – 00:18:59:08
Scott Groves
You know, the good leads, not just the online leads, right? So there’s some compliance concerns there. And then also, you know, I don’t know if I want to be in a relationship that’s only predicated on spending money because eventually somebody will want to spend more money than me or exactly as the you know, the mortgage banks were predicting.
00:18:59:16 – 00:19:14:18
Scott Groves
Zillow used that ad spend from realtors and from lenders to now create their own real estate and mortgage company. So, you know, everybody who ever spent money on Zillow and I was guilty of it, four or five years ago, we basically just funded a star.
00:19:14:18 – 00:19:15:12
Daniel Ramsey
Competition.
00:19:15:16 – 00:19:23:20
Scott Groves
To to become our competition. We’ve seen the same thing with a bunch of the other online services that aren’t even worth mentioning saying about Realtor.com.
00:19:23:20 – 00:19:25:13
Daniel Ramsey
I mean, we used to own that.
00:19:26:01 – 00:19:48:02
Scott Groves
Yeah, yeah. Now they’re, now, you know, it’s it’s insane what’s happened to realtors, you know, your pain and MLS speed to create the speed which is now being resold to Zillow or Redfin or whomever, so then they can send it back to you. So the realtor is really getting screwed in this equation and I’m sympathetic to them. You know, if I had unlimited money, I’d be happy to spend unlimited money on all my realtors.
00:19:48:09 – 00:20:30:22
Scott Groves
But, you know, I think we’ve got to get back to this idea of a good lender. Realtor relationship is a lender who will, you know, stay communicative, communicate that word out. They will stand by their word. Meaning if they issue a preapproval letter, that’s a deal that can close and then close the deal on time, you know, because I think it’s kind of lost in translation that nationally I think the National Association of Realtors has pulled this nationally, still over 20% of deals fall through because of financing issues or issues with the appraisal, where the lender didn’t bring in a local area expert that could help bring the appraisal in at the contract price if
00:20:30:22 – 00:20:51:00
Scott Groves
it was validated, which most times it is. I mean, realtors aren’t selling property way over the asking unless it’s justified. So, you know, I’m trying to constantly remind my realtors like, hey, there’s going to be somebody who’s going to offer to pay for this and there’s going to have somebody that has the super cool flier program and there’s going to be, you know, some new start up that’s willing to do this really all that matters.
00:20:51:00 – 00:21:07:05
Scott Groves
Mr.. Mrs. Realtor, is that your client? If that’s the house they want to buy, that they can close escrow or close the contract. And I think we’ve got to get back to that a little bit because I think it’s been lost in the fact that like, oh, well, every lender can just close, right? And they can close on time and they know what they’re doing.
00:21:07:09 – 00:21:21:18
Scott Groves
So now it’s become this commodity business. And what’s the rate? What’s the rate? What’s the rate? What’s the rate? Well, the rate is not the most important part of the mortgage transaction. The most important part of a mortgage transaction is can you close the mortgage, which still doesn’t happen. 20% of the time nationally, which is insane to me.
00:21:22:18 – 00:21:46:18
Scott Groves
So what we’ve been doing a lot of is investing money where we can get back into the community. So if there’s a charitable event that a realtor wants to help, Cohoes will jump in and help with that. If there’s something fun where we can get out and meet some of our clients face to face, an appreciation event or a holiday party or, you know, one of our one of our preferred partners just did this trick or treating thing on the boulevard where they’re offices.
00:21:46:18 – 00:22:06:03
Scott Groves
That’s cool, because that allows us to connect with the community where we’re doing loans, meet some of our clients in person, which we rarely get to do on the loan side. Spend some quality time with the realtors. That’s the stuff we’re really looking to spend money on. I could care less about the new Boom Town Commission, Zillow, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:22:06:03 – 00:22:15:00
Scott Groves
Somewhere where, you know, we’re getting to spend money so that some competitor can can can create a better mousetrap to try to put us out of business. This is not what I’m interested in.
00:22:15:18 – 00:22:43:20
Daniel Ramsey
What is I appreciate that that response. What when in your opinion is happening in your industry right now, mortgages. You mentioned rocket mortgage earlier, real estate sales coming in XP. There’s a lot of, you know, change happening in our world. And even in your guys’s world, I mean, there’s shifts happening, big ones. So what’s where do you see the future of the mortgage industry going and what’s your predictor of the future?
00:22:43:20 – 00:22:47:11
Daniel Ramsey
Like what what what is going to be the fight over the next 3 to 5 years?
00:22:47:23 – 00:22:50:10
Scott Groves
Yeah, this is this is a pretty unpopular opinion.
00:22:50:10 – 00:22:53:17
Daniel Ramsey
So perfect. Well, see, glad you’re sharing it here.
00:22:54:20 – 00:23:20:11
Scott Groves
This is a pretty unpopular opinion. And this is going to sound kind of egotistical and narcissistic. But I think it’s really important for loan officers to hear we’ve just had a five, six, seven, eight year run up of property values, turnover of properties, insanely low interest rates. You know, there’s been every indicator there for the loan officer to succeed.
00:23:21:01 – 00:24:00:23
Scott Groves
And frankly, whether it’s in our coaching program or people I’m giving advice to or people that are trying to career plan, I’m like, look, if you haven’t been making 100 plus thousand a year over the last couple of years, and you’re seasoned to this industry, leave now, like honestly, leave now. And go get training in another career. And I’m not saying that in jest and I’m not I’m not saying that to be hyperbolic or melodramatic, but that’s the reality because the Quicken Mortgages, the online mortgage experience, I really think what’s going to happen is the business is going to get turbo taxed, meaning that pick a timeframe, 18 months, two years, five years from now,
00:24:01:20 – 00:24:23:05
Scott Groves
50% of consumers out there, just like TurboTax, are going to be able to go on, click a few buttons, you know, their one pay stub, one W-2. It’s going to pull all of their information from the Internet out there, from the ether, via the Internet and they are literally going to get, you know, three little columns. Pick one from call me one from column B, one for see, there’s your mortgage, you’re done.
00:24:23:12 – 00:24:37:22
Scott Groves
And then what’ll happen is that’ll put just like H&R BLOCK did, that’ll put 50% of the accountants or the loan officers in this scenario out of business. You will cease to exist in the mortgage industry or you will go into marketing or be, you know, low paid processor or something like that.
00:24:38:04 – 00:24:41:00
Daniel Ramsey
So how do you how do you stay relevant in that prediction.
00:24:41:02 – 00:25:01:00
Scott Groves
So that the 50% that stick around are going to be the ones that are like the more boutique accountants? I’m sure you’re in the same spot. I pay my accountant an arm and a leg to file my taxes because I have a separate corporation for the coaching. My expectation is I can call him midyear any time for tax advice and he’s going to pick up the phone.
00:25:01:03 – 00:25:21:06
Scott Groves
So I pay him a king’s ransom, whatever he wants to file my taxes, I probably pay him 100 times what TurboTax costs now, 20, 5000 bucks, whatever it is, because I want that access to knowledge. I know that throughout the year I might have some tax planning, there might be a different product on the table. It’s going to be the same exact thing in mortgages.
00:25:21:06 – 00:25:47:13
Scott Groves
So if you can niche down into your product, you can really be a a debt consultant, which is what Barry Habeeb has been talking about for a couple of years. You know, those 50% are going to survive and probably thrive. And again, this is the part that sometimes comes across a little obnoxious, like if I lose 50% of my income over the next couple of years because the market goes through a massive transition, I won’t be happy, but my family will still eat.
00:25:48:02 – 00:26:13:12
Scott Groves
If somebody is making 70, 80, even 90, maybe $100,000 a year and they take a 50% cut to their income, nobody’s going to stay in this crazy business with this level of stress for 40 or 50 grand a year. So I really thought what I’m talking about was was going to happen in 2019 and 2020. What ended up happening, as you know, is rates dropped dramatically and unexpectedly and it threw a lot of loan officers and a lot of companies a lifeline.
00:26:13:12 – 00:26:42:04
Scott Groves
And so some people that probably should have washed out over the last 12 months or the next 12 months are still sticking around because rates are low. But but I’m not kidding. Like the future of the industry is 50% of business is going to be quick in online digital loan officers that that will work for $100 a file because it literally takes them 30 seconds and they’re just rubber stamping the 1003 because compliance says some loan officer has to sign this thing or you’re going to move to that boutique offering and have a very wide product knowledge.
00:26:42:04 – 00:26:44:17
Scott Groves
I don’t I don’t think there’s going to be a lot in between.
00:26:45:02 – 00:27:08:22
Daniel Ramsey
I love that question. How do you run your like, let’s walk through your operation real quick for the audience. I want to understand the right way to build a mortgage team. Like what does it look like as you grew from where you are today to like, let’s cut it in half and then let’s cut that in half. What were the steps that you kind of built up in order to build a team and and have as much success of you as you had?
00:27:09:06 – 00:27:27:12
Scott Groves
Yeah. So I’m going to go back in time about five years, you know, myself and my business partner, Justin, we both have young kids, you know, two or three years old. Yeah, he does a lot of property investing. I have my coaching business, so we kind of decided that we were going to started this birthday party going on out there, one of your team members having a cake.
00:27:28:08 – 00:27:45:21
Scott Groves
We decided that strategically we were going to do less on an individual basis because we wanted to focus on other parts of my life and other parts of his life and other business ventures. So probably our business model isn’t the best for people to replicate off because we’re trying to take our foot off the gas instead of just crushed the world.
00:27:46:09 – 00:27:56:08
Scott Groves
So let me go back a few years when I was doing the most business individually, which I think my best year was like, I don’t think I know my best year with 98 million. I never hit that $100 million mark on my own.
00:27:56:22 – 00:27:58:00
Daniel Ramsey
You’re upset.
00:27:58:00 – 00:28:22:00
Scott Groves
You’re upset. Very upset. I’m very upset. So I think the first thing you have to do, the very first thing you have to do is you have to find somebody to take some of the busy work off your plate. And this might be a personal busywork. This might be hiring a virtual assistant, a virtual professional, in order to take a lot of those lower paid tasks off of our plate.
00:28:22:13 – 00:28:27:13
Scott Groves
For example, one of my first coaches in the business was Todd Duncan, who’s a great guy and a great coach.
00:28:27:20 – 00:28:29:03
Daniel Ramsey
He’s in Sacramento, right?
00:28:29:05 – 00:28:49:05
Scott Groves
I think he’s actually got a new part now, but he does a lot of events in San Diego, really big in the industry. You know, the first time I met with him, he’s like, Scott, would you we you know, we knocked out how much money I wanted to make and what my hourly rate was. And he’s like, Scott, would you pay somebody $100 an hour to go run errands, you know, pick up dry cleaning, run by target, make photocopies?
00:28:49:05 – 00:29:07:14
Scott Groves
And I’m like, no, that’s absurd. He’s like, okay, well, your time, if you’re doing the strong activities that you know you can do to regenerate your time is worth $100 an hour. Anything that’s worth less than half of that, hire somebody else to do it. And I know how easy it is for me to say this. Now that we’re managing our own know, we can hire ahead of demand.
00:29:07:18 – 00:29:30:12
Scott Groves
When you’re making 50, 60, $70,000, $100,000 a year, and you’re like, all right, well, I’m going to take a 25,000, $35,000 hit to bring in a virtual professional or an onsite admin. That is scary as shit, but I’m telling you, you have to hire ahead of demand and grow ahead of demand because if you don’t, what everybody does is they wait till they’re at 110% capacity.
00:29:30:23 – 00:29:47:17
Scott Groves
Then they try to hire somebody. They have no time or energy to train that person. And then that person fails and you’re like, Well, see, this is bullshit. Nobody can do it as well as me. It’s like, No, you hired too late in the game and you of train that person to do things as well, or at least 80% as well as you.
00:29:47:17 – 00:30:01:23
Scott Groves
So the first person I ever hired, I didn’t have money to hire them. I had a three bedroom house that I was hanging on to by the skin of my teeth. I found a gal in exchange for room and board would work 20 hours a week for me, so I let her live in one of the rooms for free.
00:30:02:01 – 00:30:21:07
Scott Groves
She could eat my groceries, but she had to like run all my personal errands, walk my dog, do photocopies. You know, I got about 4 hours a week of work out of her that opened up the floodgates to make more money. And then I hired my first full time assistant and then a full time loan officer assistant who knew tax returns and then a second loan officer assistant who knew more about tax returns.
00:30:21:13 – 00:30:42:17
Scott Groves
And it just snowballed. And we were able to get to almost $100 million team, which was like 180 loans that year with three people. And so, you know, hire ahead of demand, find that first hire if you’re, you know, find some way to get them. Like I said, I offered them a bedroom in my house. You don’t to go that crazy, but get some money from your company, pitch in some money from your paycheck.
00:30:42:21 – 00:30:58:06
Scott Groves
Get that first 15 to $20 an hour employee who can take a ton of stuff off your off your plate. And then what you’ll find is you can just load them up with more and more stuff and you can teach you how to be a loan officer assistant. And then you move them up and you slide somebody else in and you move them up and you slide somebody else in.
00:30:58:20 – 00:31:10:14
Scott Groves
And oh, by the way, don’t forget to be nice to them, because my problem is I have lost key employees about every three or four years because I’m not the easiest person to work for, but I’m working on that. So work in progress. Yeah. So yeah.
00:31:11:02 – 00:31:28:24
Daniel Ramsey
So know what your worth hire before the demand hits higher when you don’t actually probably need them. But plan for the growth. Yeah. And then and then it sounds like you had a progression like, you know, a personal assistant, then a loan assistant. Is that kind of the progression?
00:31:29:09 – 00:31:58:22
Scott Groves
Yeah, absolutely. And so now, you know, as you know, because we hired Donna, who’s amazing right now, we have a loan officer assistant that effectively does the upfront stuff, you know, pre approvals building the file. We have an employee who takes the file from contract to close. They worked very close with the processor. And then we have Donna, our virtual professional who does a lot of the marketing calendar, scheduling email, follow, pay my bills, submit my expense reports, all that kind of stuff.
00:31:59:01 – 00:32:24:19
Scott Groves
And then my business partner and I so quite frankly, at five people, we’re actually a little overstaffed for the amount of volume and production we’re doing. I will use the excuse and the caveat that our loans are getting way, way more difficult here in L.A. than I’ve ever seen them in 20 years. And like I said, my business partner and I are fine giving up that extra money with kind of quote unquote, over staffing because we’ve got other things going on our life, kids and other businesses and things like that.
00:32:24:19 – 00:32:46:02
Scott Groves
So yeah, I think every employee that you add to the team on the mortgage business should help you add about five loans I have found. Yeah, five loans a month. So I found most loan officers. They can just grit and bare it and get up to about five loans a month that they’re closing on their own, taking the pre-approval is doing all the work and they’re pretty much at capacity.
00:32:46:09 – 00:33:08:19
Scott Groves
And then to go from 5 to 10, you need that personal assistant photocopier, you know, kind of highly paid. Yeah, highly paid executive assistant in person. Then maybe you go with a virtual assistant. You know what? You move that person up to now. But that next hire a virtual professional moving your your your guy or girl in house up to an alleyway that can get you to about 15 loans a month.
00:33:08:24 – 00:33:23:07
Scott Groves
And then personally, I’ve never been able to scale past about 2022 loans a month. So I don’t I don’t know what that looks like. I’m not competent enough to speak about that, but I think 3 to 4 employees plus yourself will get you up to about 2025 loans a month if you’re doing it right.
00:33:23:16 – 00:33:45:10
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah. What I’m and we’re, we’re going to wrap up soon. You’ve got a giveaway. It’s called the loan officer call tracker. So we’re going to talk about that real quick and then we’re going to cut. But talk about this because you use it and you teach your folks to use it, how is it helped you really grow and focus on your business?
00:33:45:20 – 00:34:04:23
Scott Groves
Focus is the key, right? Like, I don’t care if you use this. The core calls it the greatness tracker. Brian Buffini calls it something else. Todd Duncan calls it something else. There’s a reason these are all, all the weeks that we’ve gone through this year. Let’s see. Yeah, yeah, I’ve got them all. All here. These are all the weeks of my calls and some weeks are better than others.
00:34:05:04 – 00:34:11:16
Scott Groves
But it’s really important. And. And strategically and psychologically, there’s a reason it’s pretty nice.
00:34:11:17 – 00:34:12:05
Daniel Ramsey
Writing them.
00:34:12:05 – 00:34:33:08
Scott Groves
Down eight and a half by 14 in red, it’s always this clipboard is 100% of the time within arm’s reach of, you know, myself and all the people on our team. So it just sits on this clipboard. There’s something, you know, we are inundated inundated with digital input these days. The emails and the clicks and the blips and the tweets and the bleeps and all that shit.
00:34:33:13 – 00:34:52:04
Scott Groves
So having something I have found and most of our coaching clients I found having something physical right by you where you’re writing out, okay, here’s my three buyer’s calls for today. Here are my three new reel to relationship calls. Today I called at least one listing agent. You know, I tried to get face to face with two people a day just.
00:34:52:04 – 00:35:13:14
Scott Groves
I don’t know what it is, man. That little physical representation of what we’re supposed to accomplish every day. It keeps me focused. And I can always tell when our coaching clients are taking seriously because they’ll start filling this up. And I know that they’ve seen something where that I’m okay. I put it out. I can, I can committed to it because I always get the email, Hey, Scott, I’m finally making the calls.
00:35:13:14 – 00:35:27:07
Scott Groves
Even though I’ve been on the coaching program three months. What are the scripts? What do I say? I’m like, Oh, watch this training video. Watch that training video. Yeah, yeah. But it’s really funny because I can tell when people’s business is taking off because they actually start making the calls once they have the physical representation here on the desk.
00:35:27:13 – 00:35:40:04
Scott Groves
And if anybody wants a copy of this, you can email me at Scott a consolidated Coaching. Scott at consolidated coaching. No fancy spelling there Scott consolidated coach income and put it you know stuff Oh come on.
00:35:40:11 – 00:36:01:14
Daniel Ramsey
We’ll put it in the notes. Yeah. Along with your, your loan officer call tracker. Everything okay. So what is, let’s, let’s, let’s wrap up. What’s the most valuable advice you would give to a loan officer who’s wanting to go to the 20 where you kind of hit that £20 a month is a big deal. Yeah.
00:36:01:23 – 00:36:02:13
Scott Groves
No big deal.
00:36:02:18 – 00:36:10:04
Daniel Ramsey
What? What’s that one piece of advice or that one thing you’d like to leave the audience with in terms of driving and growing a mortgage company?
00:36:10:12 – 00:36:43:01
Scott Groves
Yeah. So there’s three things, actually. Sorry. Of course, the first thing is, is I would enroll your spouse or your family or the important people around you to see if that’s what you really want to do, quite frankly, because, you know, there’s a lot of loan officers who are quietly and not, you know, most for on social media, closing five or ten loans a month, making 200, 304 hundred grand, which you know, in their market area, even in L.A., is a really great living.
00:36:43:04 – 00:37:05:02
Scott Groves
And they can do that with some some balance and some sanity and a, you know, still taking care of their health and their family and whatnot. So if you really and let’s be honest, if you really have an ego around this idea of getting to 20, 25, 30 loans a month and, you know, being top 1% in the country, I would first talk to the people that are important in your life to make sure that they’re on board for that same journey.
00:37:05:08 – 00:37:21:22
Scott Groves
Because no matter how systematized you are and how great your staff is, there’s going to be a lot of late nights and happy hours and some weekends work and there’s going to be some sacrifices. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is, I don’t care if it’s through consolidated coaching, the core, Todd Duncan, Brian Bassey, next level ELO.
00:37:21:22 – 00:37:39:00
Scott Groves
There’s a lot of good coaching programs out there. If you really want to get to the next level, you have to get coaching from somebody. Like I could put my who manages apartment buildings on the phone as a mortgage coach and just the idea that you have to call in and report your numbers and be accountable to somebody, that’s usually enough to get people on a next track.
00:37:39:09 – 00:37:41:23
Daniel Ramsey
So accountability matters and accountability.
00:37:42:15 – 00:38:04:23
Scott Groves
Yeah, we do. We do a daily 8:30 a.m. lead generation call for 10 minutes and not surprisingly, the people that get on that call every day are the ones that are doing the best in their business. And spoiler alert, I’m not even sharing anything super profound every day. Once in a while I have a nugget come out, but it’s just their commitment to, okay, I’m on this call every day and then I get over to my lead generation.
00:38:05:01 – 00:38:25:02
Scott Groves
Just that consistency and that accountable to themselves is a game changer. So why is that? Whether it’s me next level, I love those guys. Todd Duncan, the core, whatever, get into some type of coaching and then and then the third thing I would say is as you grow, you have to constantly keep front of mind what’s in it for the realtor?
00:38:25:08 – 00:38:58:02
Scott Groves
What’s in it for the client? Yeah, because I’ve made this mistake I have I have damaged probably with beyond repair some relationships with a realtor and a lender because I started to get cocky and said, Hey, this is what I’m doing. Great, this is my conveyor belt, this is my system. This is awesome. We’re crushing it. We’re closing deals in 14, 15 days, and I’ve lost track of what’s in it for the realtor or what’s in it for the client or lost focus of, Hey, this is somebody buying their dream house, their forever house.
00:38:58:06 – 00:39:16:23
Scott Groves
Maybe they’re the first person in their family to ever own a house. So just as you start to build and grow and hire the people and get people on the conveyor belt, do do everything you can to not lose that focus of like that kind of childlike wonderment that comes along with somebody buying their first house or upgrading to their forever dream house.
00:39:17:13 – 00:39:39:04
Scott Groves
I have not done a great job keeping that top of mind for myself, so it’s something we’re constantly trying to work into our process, be a little bit more warm, fuzzy, which is not my nature. I’m an ex-military guy. I want like everything by the checklist in the conveyor belt. But, you know, just remember, this is a real emotional experience for our clients who are buying a home and for realtors who are trying to pay their bills with closing these home.
00:39:39:04 – 00:39:47:14
Scott Groves
So keeping that top of mind, I think, will serve people at a very high level as their as they’re growing their career and growing their book of business.
00:39:47:21 – 00:39:50:17
Daniel Ramsey
There you go. Scott GROSS Consolidated coaching.
00:39:50:23 – 00:40:07:17
Scott Groves
Daniel, I really I really appreciate it. And you’re not paying me to say this, but I’ve got to say, Donna, who I got through mod is is one of the best one of the best team members I’ve ever had, like her attention to detail her her desire to just please the client and the system and everything else like you.
00:40:07:17 – 00:40:15:07
Scott Groves
You guys have hired some great people. So we’ll we’ll be in touch for more hires in the future. And I think Donna is going to be with us really long term.
00:40:15:13 – 00:40:26:14
Daniel Ramsey
Well, now now you making me ask you another question as a lender. Ello, when should somebody start considering hiring a virtual assistant and what has made you successful in that?
00:40:26:22 – 00:40:51:09
Scott Groves
So when your calendar is fubar effed up beyond all recognition and you start missing appointments and and your boss is on you about submitting the expense report and stuff is falling through the cracks. Or you’re like, Oh my God, I forgot to send that bill at the moment that your calendar is a mess, you need help. And and the reason for that is we’ve all had that experience where we’ve met with a referral partner.
00:40:51:12 – 00:41:07:05
Scott Groves
We thought it went great. Yeah. And we rush out of the coffee meeting because we’re going somewhere else. We don’t follow up with them. And then three months later, we see that realtor closing a deal with our arch enemy. And I’m like, Oh man, we had a great coffee. I forgot to follow up. I forgot to put them on my call tracker for the next four weeks.
00:41:07:12 – 00:41:24:21
Scott Groves
Having that virtual professional has allowed me to say, like, okay, I need a half an hour in between each of my appointment. These thank you cards need to go out. These people need to be added to my database. I need them to go on our drip campaign. So just, you know, once you feel your schedule out of control, get in touch with Daniel and hire a virtual professional.
00:41:25:06 – 00:41:35:12
Daniel Ramsey
Yeah, and that’s a wrap. Scott Groves, Consolidated Coaching. Brother, thank you for being here. Appreciate you and everything you’re doing to help the industry. And I look forward to more of these.
00:41:35:22 – 00:41:47:21
Scott Groves
Thanks, man. I’ll be up in Sacramento soon to get more tips on scaling my business from you. Why later, man.
