Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Growing with Grow Mortgage ft. Russell Petty | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 32

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Russell Petty, the owner of Grow Mortgage, is a dynamic figure in the mortgage industry, known for his innovative approach and impressive achievements. He launched Grow Mortgage on February 2, 2022, and in its first year alone, the company posted a volume of around $60 million. Despite his role as an owner, Russell remains deeply involved in the day-to-day operations, considering himself an originator first and foremost. His strategic focus on the purchase market, even during the refinance boom, has proven to be a wise long-term approach, setting Grow Mortgage apart in the industry.Russell has also received significant recognition, including a "visionary" award at the Hall of AIME event, showcasing his influence and leadership within the mortgage community. He is known for maintaining an incredibly efficient process, with an average clear-to-close time of just under 10 days, and he has consistently earned five-star reviews for his serviceFor More Check Out our Playlist: https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgPwyhl8CkXiM0cBtuY8A_6JS60FueLz3&si=0_2dnoPkYV6jcSGw Check Us Out on all Platforms!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coffeez-for-closers-with-joe-shalaby/id1726674707Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KkQWRqHSHcCK3TVfsRKUK?si=hjTnUOjFS5eTDxBjgf4RwQ&preview=noneAmazon: https://www.amazon.com/Coffeez-Closers-Joe-Shalaby/dp/B0CRYLQRW6 Coffeez and Closers Socials & WebsiteWebsite: https://coffeezforclosers.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coffeezpod/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbnU0T3RrLXdPbC1BR2NLc2lWcExqWklQaHlQUXxBQ3Jtc0tudi1GV2Zod3hRYzRhTkhONFBuMlptblNGSlJ1QzhpV0tzbHh5YThNR0R3Y2RnNnU5NV9ER3E5ZUhxMjdUUWp1UWo4MVl6Q2szeXo1cFh1OHNkYkxDR1F0MXZtMTZ6QnZoakdzSnJpVl9PcWZBOU9zZw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40coffeezforclosers&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa2pLZ2pMaUxmSTh4dy1qazMtdlBjX2pVN1AxQXxBQ3Jtc0tua2RUTUNsRmJob0RKWlVqeDhNaUN4US1rdlRvUG9Fdm5SNk1jU1pQNzNLQnVmUmtGMGtMYUViZ2pLMXJkOVJUci1kMk9DN2poTThVV2NFd0tISWdDMzNwOEZ2c3pVb09lbEhjemJHblRsS1RKdHZqbw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpeople%2FCoffeez-for-Closers-with-Joe-Shalaby%2F61556355642488%2F&v=uXvk6LY9lS8 Joe Shalaby SocialsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/josephshalaby/TikTok: https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa3p6VlRzR1BWMkJQM1ZIaUdVZHhYVTYyak43QXxBQ3Jtc0tuUXVBOE1oZUJYTmZIZnNENUgxQkhjamk4RXJHb09MWU9OczJhLWpnX0JwN2pENzRhaV9NajJROW5nek1tQ1VvVE40ZFJuUUI2cnI0ajNKLXE4d1VMUUpkTGFHR0tGY0o5NUhnWnZnaXJoZXdEM0piaw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tiktok.com%2F%40josephshalaby&v=uXvk6LY9lS8Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephshalaby E Mortgage Capital Socials & WebsiteInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/emortgagecapital/Website: https://www.emortgagecapital.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/Emortgagecap #1 Mortgage Company on Social on 🌎#1 Non Delegated Lender in the Country🌟#1 Broker in CANMLS #1416824"Mortgages Are What We Do Not Who We Are"™https://finance.yahoo.com/news/learn-why-e-mortgage-capital-192000740.htmlAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What's up everybody? Welcome to another episode of Coffee's Proposers. Today, I'm sitting down with a mortgage phenomenon, one of the most brilliant young minds in the mortgage industry, and he's taking the state of North Carolina by storm, one of the greatest innovators, and I think one of the best mortgage professionals of our generation. Please welcome the founder and CEO of Grow Mortgage, Mr. Russell Petty. Thanks for having me on Joe. Appreciate it. What an intro. Thank you.

Thank you. So, Russ, I'd like to start the show with everybody with the same question. Yeah. And that is, what is your morning routine? Yeah, so I don't believe in necessarily a morning routine. It's just whatever it takes to hit the goal that day. So I always think, where am I going to be by the end of the year? and then I back that into monthly, quarterly, monthly, and then daily goals that I have to hit.

So it's just whatever it takes to hit those. But most mornings, I would say, I get out a bed around maybe six, five, thirty, six o'clock. I grab my coffee so that I can actually function. And then I have like my tasks very intricately laid out the night before. So I know exactly what needs to get done that day. And before I go into the office, before I do anything, it takes me about four hours every morning. and I knock those tasks out for that morning. And then once those are done,

then I start actually opening email working and doing that sort of thing. But until then, like, I'm on D&D, you can't get a hold of me, I get what has to be done for the day done, and then I go tackle the rest of the fires. Four hours of task management early in the morning. Yeah.

That's a lot of tasks. Well, I think it's when you're the sharpest, right? Like, once you first get up, like the longer you go throughout, I think Bezos said this. As a leader, as like a vice president, president C-suite whatever, you're really only making three or four decisions a day. Like you're making very important decisions, but you're not, the further you go through the day,

the worse your decision-making kind of gets. So I try and knock all of that out as early as I can, so I make the best decision I can for my people. I love that. And you obviously are making some great decisions for your company right now. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So you're only 28 years old. What year did you get started in the mortgage industry? I was 16, just about to turn 17, so I've been doing this for 12-ish years, I guess, almost half my life, just mortgaging it out, you know? And you started in IT? Yeah, so I started out.

I was working on a workers permit fixing computers doing data recovery for like insurance company. So if your house burned down, I would go in, get the data off your computer and that kind of thing. And I wanted to go into IT really bad. And I was like going certification after certification every certification, Didn't like the job, which I think you've got to enjoy at least somewhat what you're doing. So I didn't like it, didn't like the people I worked for, at least the direct manager.

So I ended up quitting my last $4 into my 98 firebird. And a glass door popped up on my phone. It said this company needed a IT guy. So I called and I was like, hey, what do you need? And the guy said, our internet's out. It's the last day of the month. I didn't know what that meant. I was like, I can fix it.

So I drove over. I rebooted their router. And they thought I was Jesus incarnate. They're like, this is incredible. I think it was 10 people in the whole company. So I started Monday. They taught me, it was right, right, I remember my first big project I did for them. Because when I started, I was just building on encompass and doing general IT.

But then RESP came out. And I had to learn Trid. I had to learn the three-day rule and LEs and CDs and, like, build it all out. So I kind of just got dumped into the fire and then build out like active directory, web design, like anything IT related I was doing for them. But that's kind of where I cut my teeth. And then I saw what mortgage people were making back then. This is a refy boom.

And you remember right when Trid came out, rates were dropped as well. So I was like, how do I do that? And Doug, the owner was nice enough to let me learn from him. And he really is probably the majority of the reason that I stuck with it is just because he gave me that opportunity in the beginning to get licensed and also do loans. So I owe a lot of that to him. That's awesome. So you didn't do college. You just went straight into the mortgage industry.

I did, yeah. Because it seems like not only did you learn so much about the mortgage industry, it's like, you're like brilliant in the tech space as well. And I guess that's a lot of it's due to your tech background. I don't know about brilliant, but I think this industry is behind in technology. I mean, if you look at it, like the biggest players are not great technologies. Like people, no offense to these people, but people are still on KALIC's point.

I mean, they're still an Encompass, and it's like this 24. We have AI. We have all this stuff. And like, you know, you're dealing with DOS-based programs. So if it works, it works, I guess. but we're moving into in the next 12 to 24 months, especially once AI grabs this industry, it's going to be a very different industry.

And if people aren't on that cutting edge of that technology and getting ahead of the game, especially with artificial intelligence, they're going to have a big problem trying to compete with the loan officers that do. So I try and make sure that my team is set up properly with the right technology to compete with the big players. Nice.

So, I mean, I was going to save this for later, but we could just dive right into this now. How are you implementing AI in your business right? Yeah, so we're working on a lot of things. The issue with AI, there's two issues with AI, if you try and implement it into your mortgage company or any company. One is hallucination. So with mortgage, there's a lot of gray. There's not a lot of like, you know, if this, then that. So AI would really have to have a lot of data in order to make the right decision. AI, as it stands today, a lot of these large language models, they don't, they're very generalized.

So you can fine tune it, and that's very difficult to do. It's very expensive to do. do, we can get into that later, but with that being said, it could give wrong information. If it doesn't know for certain, it's going to give you an answer that may be incorrect, it may confuse things. So hallucination is an issue. The second issue you're going to run into is data security. So if you're using like a chat GPT or something like that, there's certain data you shouldn't give it because these AI models are very easy to trick into giving you the data that it has.

So security and hallucination are a big issue. What we have been doing is we've been training our own LLM in-house that we host that we hosts that we secure that is not available outside of us. It's our own LLM. We've been training that on our condition sheets. We've been training that on our processes. We've been training that on our sales meetings. We've been training that on anything we can find that I want it to know. So what we're trying to create with that is something where a loan officer can come to it, a processor can come to it and say, this is the problem I have. What is the solution? And it's going to give you credit risk data. It's going to learn to reason and also be able to train in

marketing, support, sales, and all of our internal systems. So if you ask it, you know, hey, I have a question on this loan and this is the problem I'm having, it's going to be able to look at it, read it, and tell you the problem. We're also... Are you implementing that on chat? So you're building your own chat GPT, LMLM? Essentially. On the chat GPD 4.0?

Nope, on our own. If you build it on chat GPT, the security risk is just too great at the moment. Now, I'm sure, you know, people larger than I could call OpenAI and build something out with them. I know they offer that. It's just not something that we have done. We've kind of built it in-house. All of the technology I have, I want to own. I don't like to have, I don't like to lose control of software that is like integral to my business.

So I try and keep it within my walls. We've experienced what happens when that happens. Yeah, we sure have. So I try and keep it in there. So it's our own tech completely. And then the second part of it, we call her Rose. So the second part of Rose is she has OCR. So OCR is ocular.

She can read things. So we can give her, you know, a sheet. Maybe an A.E. sends us a sheet of, you know, this is our flyer, this is our matrix. We can just upload that to Rose and ask her questions. And then she reads it and gives us answers. We can upload a, you know, whatever document, as long as it's not like a private document, we can upload that document. Rose will give us feedback and say, here are things you could do.

So, you know, we're trying to make it where it's a loan officer or a processor, anyone in mortgage's best friend is kind of what we're building. That's awesome. So something like Angel. Yeah, a lot like what they're doing with Angel. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Pavan's been on a rampage building out, Angel, but he's spent millions building that out. It's so expensive. It's so expensive. It's getting cheaper now as AI develops. You know, it's a lot like getting into, I guess, like, smartphones back in the day, or, you know, computers themselves. You want eight megabytes and it's $5,000. Now you go get a terabyte hard drive for, you know, 50 bucks.

So the further we progress into AI, the cheaper it's going to be to build it. I mean, if you would have built that on ChatGPT, though, it just cost you just a developer. cost. Yeah, but then, you know, let's say someone that wants to get our data could then interface with that and say, give me the data. And not only could they just take what we built instantly, they could also get all of my customer-sensitive data. And that's why we built it and hosted locally. Now, Chat-GPT has mortgage built-out LLMs already. Yes, yep. How would your LLM differ from some of the Chat-GPT, like, canned options that people have already built on their platform?

Yeah, so, you know, with the canned stuff, it's very generalized. You can't really customize it. It's just kind of is what it is, and it's very general. For us, I wanted it to be very niched into what Grow Mortgage is about. What are our processes? What are our overlays? What are our ideals, our values? So when you talk to Rose, it's kind of like talking to an employee at the company. She knows all of our processes, better than anyone. She knows all of the data. She knows that individual loan officer, because we give them all an ID. So we're beta testing this now. And when, you know, loan officer A messages rose, she knows their disc profile. She knows everything about them, their data, their past closings, and it's all integrated in our CRM. So she knows the actions that they're taking as well. So, you know, she knows how to coach them individually instead of just this general, like, here's what you could do to make the video.

It's like, hey, I know that you're a green disc profile. So I need to talk to you this way because you're Joe. and this is the problem you have because I know what you're doing day in, day out, this is what you need to fix, and this is how I need to talk to you about it. So it's much more individualized than it would be if you were to just go to like a chat GPT

and try and build a canned robot, or canned AI, I should say. Wow. So you're tying it to the CRM, which then ties to their profile, which ties to their production. Right. And their disc, so it talks to them a certain way. But this is all in beta right now,

so it hasn't been launched yet. No. And who's coding? all this? Me and I've got two developers as well that are helping me with it. Nice. So you know how to code as well? I do. And the developers are in-house? Yes. I'm doing the development wrong on my end.

Oh no. There are pros and cons to outsources. I mean if they do the sprints the right way and that kind of thing. I mean, you can do outsource. It just depends on timeline and what your needs are. Yeah, yeah. We have a different model. You're doing it all centralized, but it's very fascinating how you're doing it. I love that you know, you're on the cusp of all this because, you know, you're my buddy and I can always just reach out to you. I appreciate it, man, absolutely. Um, so like, let's talk about, like, out of all the businesses you could have started, could have got into, why did you choose the

mortgage space, you think? Yeah, so, I mean, I grew up with not a lot of money, um, and seeing the opportunities that mortgage gave at a very young age and seeing those people, I was like, well, if they can do it, I can definitely do it. Yeah. Um, so, you know, getting into it at a young age. I was kind of thrown into it. And then I was like, well, this is all I know. You know, I don't have a degree. I don't really want to do IT. And I enjoy doing this. So I was like, I'll just do this. I was never, you know, I mean, I closed a lot of loans to me. I was in Scotsmans and whatnot. I did well originating. I wasn't in love with originating. You know, and I told everybody that I've never told anybody like, oh my goodness, I can't wake up and go take another 10, you know, 10.03, can't wait.

So, you know, when I open grow, I was like, I'm going to originate and that's what I'll do. And, you know, I'll just do it the way I want to do it and that'll make it easier. And as I did it and built the team, I was like, I really, really enjoy helping these people a whole hell of a lot more than I like doing loans. So now I've kind of pivoted away and I'm like, I can do mortgage. And what all the mistakes, the endless amount of mistakes that I've made over the past decade, I can keep them from making it. So for mortgage for me, it's not that I'm like in love with the mortgage industry. I like it. I like helping the people and that sort of thing. But for me, it's the only thing that I really know.

Like I say, I've done it for almost half my life. And the mistakes that I've made, I can keep these other people that I see coming into the industry and just helping them. And I get so much more satisfaction from that. And actually ties into the next question I have. You know, something I really admire about you is just your abundance mentality. And I talked about this a little earlier with you. And your willingness to go completely out of your way and help strangers in the broker community. community and that you're one of the only people that really just is always doing that

perpetually. What motivates you to do that every single day? Yes. So, I mean, it goes back to, I guess, my why, which I think everybody should have defined. For me, it's not let me go make a whole bunch of money and buy all these cars and stuff. It's like, how can I help these people that not make the mistakes that I've made over 10 years? Like, how can I help them? And that's what I'm trying to do, whether they work for me or not. Like, we just started doing open coaching because, like, I feel like a lot of the coaching, and this isn't a diss on it, but I feel like a lot of the coaching out there, is from people that haven't done it, you know, where they did it a long time ago, and it's not the

same now. And not all, but a lot, you know, and I see. You're doing coaching for the whole community? For the whole community. Anybody. Real estate agents, anybody in sales, loan officers, competitors in my market, I'm sending an invite to. We do not recruit after. It's just free coaching. And it's exact step by step of what I'm doing today that is working. Here you go, go implement it, have fun. And that's it. So, I mean, it's, for me, my why is to build the community and help those people not get their car repossessed. in a realtor meeting like mine was. You know, like how can I keep them from making, going through the shit that I went through

and that's what it is, whether they work for me or not. That's what my whole thing is. How can I help them? Servant leadership, that's what it's about for you. And that's what every great leader that I've seen has really built their foundation on. So, you know, I hope you continue to just grow in every single aspect of your business.

Appreciate it. It's exciting to see and it's exciting to see your willingness to help your competitors. Because, you know, one of the things I do, I bring on all the competitors on the show. I don't look at those competitors. They're colleagues and they're friends. 100%. It's like, you know, we're here, we're in this together. Yeah, absolutely.

There's no competition. Like, it's just you versus you yesterday. That's all it is. That's all it is. So the people, there's this misnomer that people have like, oh, that's my competitor. I'm not going to tell my trade secret. I'm not going to give him a leg up on me. give it to them it's fine you call me if you need something I'll give you everything um so one of

things uh you know you were you were that that a lot of people think uh we're crazy to do is start our own business now why were why were you crazy enough to start grow you think on your own go out get office skyrise instead of the you know the comfy lo job that you know you You know, you went all on your own. Yeah. Newlywed. Yeah. What made you think you could do that?

Well. What inspired you to do that? So, you know, rates started going up. Mortgage industry, people were getting mergers, acquisitions, everything was falling apart. Inventory was at the lowest had ever been in 20 years. Rates hit 20-year highs. And I thought to myself, you know, it's a great time to open a mortgage company. So I did.

Which makes it even more crazy. Yeah. So, you know, I opened it up and I'm like, What could go wrong? And it went great. So, you know, it wasn't easy to build it during all of that, but I figured if I can build it during this, like imagine what it's going to be later.

I'm going to go that direction because everyone else is going that one. I'm going to see what's over there, right? So, you know, opening it up, for me, I was at a great company. I was at a fantastic company. And I love the owner. I loved everybody that was there.

And I did not feel that I was building anything that was mine. I was running a branch and I just didn't feel like I was building anything for me. I felt like I was building someone else's dream. And I didn't like that. So I called him, we're still friends of this day. And I was like, hey man, like, I love it here. I am not as motivated. And I don't have the drive that I had 18 months ago because I'm not building something that's mine. So I'm going to go open my own company. He was just as great about it as you could possibly be. anything I can help, let me know, we're going to get you transition. We open the company up. For me, it was, I need to have just something in here. There's a lot broken in there.

And one of those things is, if I don't own it, why am I building it? If it's not mine, why am I building it? I don't want to build someone else's dream unless they work for, you know, I think your dream has to be so big you can fit everyone else's dream inside of it, which is a Leila-Hormozy quote, big fan. And that was a big thing for me. But I couldn't build everyone else's dream inside of my dream that was inside of someone else's dream. It just didn't work out. So, you know, I just opened it up so that I could have control over everything, which is a positive and a negative. And I also wanted to be able to fit everyone's dream inside of not two, but one. You got a lot of big dreams. And it's funny how you break it down in this,

like, scientific way, you know. Now, one thing I want to ask you, because you have big dreams. Yeah. And who has been, like, a role model that's really inspired you to, you know, think this big? I don't know. I think a lot of it just goes back to wanting more. Like I say, I grew up with not a lot of money. It was a tough time. So I was like, you know, what can I do to not have that happen? I guess thinking about it now, you know, growing up, my best friend, they were well off, you know, they did well. And I had one house that I lived in that was not great. and then I had one house that was like 12,000 square feet that I would visit him for a week at a time.

And it was just that stark difference of like, this is possible. I could do this. I'm going to try and get something like that. And I get thinking about it now, that's probably what initially sparked it. So I think a lot of people, if they're in a hard time, they feel it's out of reach to grab something better for themselves.

And seeing that someone had created that for me at a young age, 10 years old, 12 years old, I was like, oh, well, that is possible. and I don't have to have this feeling in here. So I think that probably is a part of the drive of it. And then once I got to where I wanted to be, I was like, well, how can I get other people to have that and get them up? So I think that's probably what it is.

As far as people that I follow, Sharon, who's been on here, love Sharon, follow everything he does, Alex and Layla or Mosey. If anyone knows anything about me, they know I'm there. Number one fan, love those guys. So those three helped me think a lot bigger than I ever thought, I guess just through their content and that kind of thing of like they've built all this stuff and here's how they did it giving away the the how and then selling the implementation so you know that's kind of I guess watching them takes it that to even another another level and actually their stories

are all very similar and mine as well it's a they all grew up their poor yeah you know and it's a superpower it really it is and I don't know if you have kids yet and I bring this up on my podcast frequently do you have kids yet I have one coming on the 28th okay so So, congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. One thing that you're going to always be thinking about, because I think about this frequently, and I ask people on the show a lot, is how do we instill that same grip mentality?

Because I grew up in a third-world country. I had the same situation. I had a friend who was very wealthy, and I was poor, and he was giving me his shoes. And he was, you know, I got his hand-me-downs. And I'm like, you know, I'll take your hand-hand. Sammy dads, like, this kind of sucks. Yeah. How do I get them first?

I don't know. I want them first. Yeah. Like, I'm always getting your dirty shoes. Which I'll gladly take your old Jordans. Now I'm always wearing Jordans. I'm a 42-year-old man wearing Jordans. I got easy son.

I don't know. Like, just because I can buy them myself. Right, right. You know, I'm buying for my kids too. But, yeah. Because they, like, because, you know, he always bought for his kids, you know, the dad. So I grew up in that same mindset. And then I always, you know, one of the things that,

really invoked me as I can achieve this myself. But instilling that same grit that got us to where we're at in our kids is something that I always think about and maintaining that same work ethic that we have. Yeah. Because it's not normal. What you do is not normal. You outgrind everybody. You have something in your heart that just sets you on fire.

Your why is like every day you wake up. and hit the ground running. Yeah. And in you're young, so you know, you have this massive ambition, but, you know, instilling that in future generations is something that, you know, is going to be top of mind for you, especially once the baby gets here, you're going to be like, yeah, dude, this baby needs to be much better than me. Oh, yeah, she's going to be a monster.

Watch out. So, you know, for me, I do jiu-jitsu. I really enjoy jiu-jitsu, and it's been a great outlet for this industry. Yeah. And, and the chess. Yeah, exactly. And I'm going to put her in that the minute they tell me I can.

Because I think... Is it two? Is it two? I'm going to try and get her in there at one and a half, get an edge. Her name's Athena, so she'll rock it. But I think you have to make them do hard things. I mean, I don't know anything about this, but for me, that's what it was. You just got to put them through hard shit and make them get through it.

So I'm going to make it very difficult for her for a while. And then I'm going to make sure that, you know, when I unleash her, to the world that she has done hard things. So because I think a lot of people, especially if they grow up with money and that kind of thing, they get unleashed to the world and they're like, oh, this sucks. I've never had to deal with anything that's hard. She's going to deal with a lot of hard stuff. And then, but it's going to make her stronger.

It's going to make her better. And then when I unleash her out, hopefully the plan is that she'll have dealt with something difficult by then. That's my plan anyway. Yeah, yeah. I always try to instill, you know, the kids doing hard things, especially in the morning. Yeah. Now I have four kids, you know, so it's like, guys, you got to swallow the toad first day

in the morning. Yep. Every morning. Yep. Swallow the toad first and get your vitamins down, get your workout in, go run, get dress, laundry list, tons of chores before you even hit the ground running. 100%. Yep.

And then my kids are just as regimented as I am. They grind all day. Then they go to activities and they go to like, I make them do even more studies. and then more school. It's like boom, boom, boom. We get home at the same time. Yeah, there you go. There you go.

All of them. Yeah. From the two-year-old to the 10-year-old. But it's always like finding those additional challenges. Like, judicious is a great outlet. And I need to put them back in jiu-jitsu because it is just that human chess on it. But then, you know, when you stack jujitsu and baseball and basketball. Oh, yeah.

You know, it's a lot. Absolutely. And then school and then tutoring. Right. You know, it's quite a bit. One thing I found, too, that's really instrumental in our family is, like, we're very faithful. Church, Sunday school, you know, very regimented, like, faithful community. Yeah.

You know, it's part of our heritage as being a Coptic is, like, living a faithful life. Sure. So it's definitely something you want to, like, raise your children in the right path. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think has been, like, your reason to have such sort of. strong work ethic? I think I'm just dumb. Like I grab my phone the moment I wake up.

That is immediately, as soon as I wake up, I work. There's no like, oh, I'm going to lay. Like, I immediately grab my phone at work. And it does not get put down until I am going to sleep. And that's it. And it's that way seven days a week. It's been that for 10 years. I don't know why I'm that way.

I think I just believe in what I'm doing. You know, I believe in the mission and what I'm trying to reach, and I know what it's going to take to get it there. And I know that I make a ton of mistakes, just a ton of mistakes. So I know that I need to work twice as hard as maybe the next person would in order to hit that goal, because I know I'm going to make twice as many mistakes as they're going to make. So for me, it's more along the lines of I don't want to do it, but I have to do it. You know, it's one of those things where like, if I'm going to hit the goal I want to hit, which is a lofty goal for anybody, and I'm not as smart as the next guy.

I'm going to have to work twice as hard. I got to get in there earlier. I got to leave later. I got to be in here until 2 o'clock in the morning and then back at 7 a.m. the next morning to hit it out because I have to catch up. So that's kind of been my thing of like if I, even though I'm not smarter than them,

I can outwork them. So it's not that I want to do it every day. I definitely don't wake up every morning like, can't wait to do this, but it's got to be done. Like it just has to be done. Medeshbia says his quote. He goes, you know,

or he always mentions, story it's like you know these CEOs from Goldman and Bank of America and whatever they're like you know they get in the office you know they wake up at six and they get in the office by eight and you know and they leave by five yeah I get in by 4 a.m. yep and I leave at you know 8 p.m. so I have a four-hour work advantage over them exactly yeah you stack that 20 hours extra of work that I put in a week times times that by four for the month I worked you know 80 hours more times that by you know now I'm doing doing you know by a year now now now he's got you know eight nine hundred and

sixty hours more of work hours that they put in so they're like he's not they're not nine hundred sixty hours smarter than me yeah and they're just you know a nine to five smarter than me yeah you know but once you add the extra thousand hours of work yeah that he puts in He dominates their schedule. And he's a genius on top of it, which doesn't hurt. Yeah, exactly. He's also a genius. So in addition to the fact that, but he likes to say that those guys, if they are smarter,

like he outworks all of them. Yeah. You know, then he just crushes them. 100%. Yep. So work ethic always wins. Yep. It always wins.

So, like, you've seen a ton of success already in a very short period, I think. I mean, but what trends. do you see in the mortgage industry in the future? I think AI is going to be a problem. I think it's a solution for those that get on it early, and I think it's a problem for those that do not. Within the next 12 months, if you go back on my Facebook 14 months ago,

I said, OpenAI, Chat GPT, AI in itself, will change the world more than electricity and the internet combined. I think not only is it going to change mortgage by that much, I think he's going to change the world by that much. It is going to be the caveat that pushes us forward more than anything else does. And no one in our industry seems to be getting on it except the top dogs. Like Rocket sees this.

I know UWM sees this. I know the big players in the industry see it. But that doesn't really help anybody else. They're going to continue to be the big players because they're getting on it. So I think if you are in the space, you need to start looking into that. You need to start using VOEs, VOIs, VOAs on your loans. You need to start going in and making sure that you are truly the professional. You need to know your task.

You need to know exactly what you need to do on a daily basis to hit your goals. You need to assign those goals. Because if you don't have a goal, you can't get into it. If you don't have a process, then you can't even be consistent. Because what are you being consistent with? And I see a lot of our industry doesn't have a process. And I think that they need to have the process so they can see what parts of it that AI can take over for them. I think a lot of our industry is moving things a lot overseas in trying to lower their cost to fund alone.

And I think if they just looked at AI, especially as it grows, the cheaper it will get, they could actually do that at a much larger scale, at a better outcome for the consumer at a lower price. So I think AI is the way that they need to be leaning. Why do you think the mortgage industry has the stigma of progression? You know, like they just don't want to progress it, you know, technologically. Because you're seeing it, you've been a big advocate of innovation for the mortgage industry. But like you, as an outsider, looking into an industry of kind of like archaic beings, you know, what's your opinion about that?

They're jaded, and I think they're burnt out, and I think our industry just doesn't want to change because it's working, and this is the way it's always been. And they're just like, yeah, we're good. You know, I think a lot of the decision makers have been around for 20 to 25 years. they're making their checks. If it fails, it fails. I just think a lot of the industry that isn't doing a ton of volume is just kind of like, yeah, this is what it is.

It's just the way it's always been. I think we're also so fragmented. I think that, and I know AIM and we're brawl when it started. When I got into this business, I didn't know there were other brokers. I had no idea. Like, there were down the street. We didn't even know they were there. And we had no idea.

There was none of this. There was no collaboration. There was no corroboration. There was nothing. And I think even to this day, it's still so fragmented and such a scarcity mindset that no one's really talking. Like it's kind of just like, well, this is the way we do it individually, and I don't want to talk to them about it because then, you know, they may take what I'm doing. And it's like, no one has a secret sauce. It's just the product you sells mortgage.

Everybody's figured everything out already. Like, just innovate it, right? Just give it to them. They already know. Like, that's the secret. They already know. And they know something you don't know and you know something they don't know. But for the most part, they already know.

So I think it's just fragmented and they're afraid. to have that everything moving in one direction together. And I think if we just brought everybody together, broker, retail, everybody, and what does the consumer want and how can we give it to them? If we just did that, I think we would skyrocket this business. Yeah, and now we have a division like broker, retail, like, we don't, you know, it's like we always try to create our own divides.

I don't know why. I don't know why. Just you're all in mortgages, help the consumer. We all work for the consumer. Like, just help them. It doesn't matter how you're doing it. You know, I understand that the component retail, because Fannie Mae is here and Freddie Mac is here,

and they're advocating for the broker business. They're saying, you know, and I talked to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I couldn't believe that they're at a conference. Yeah. Like, Fannie and Freddie is here. Right. I'm going to go talk to them. Of course.

And then I asked them, like, why are you guys here? Yeah. They're like, we're here because brokers are better for the consumer. And we believe, and this is coming from the government's mouth, that if you work with the mortgage broker, it is better for the consumer. It's cheaper. There's more option. And we offer more, like the SBCP and then our down payment assistance programs and all

this other stuff. So we're here pushing our government products. I'm like, you guys are the regulator. Like, I'm scared of you. Like, you're here advocating for us? Like, this is unbelievable. Can you say that into the camera? Yeah.

I was like, hold on, what did you say again? Yeah. So next time you guys, you know, send me a letter. Yeah, exactly. You said. Yeah. This came from Fannie Mae's mouth. I took a picture.

So is there any, like, specific skills or mindset that one must have right now to be an entrepreneur in the mortgage industry or any entrepreneur? Yeah. You got to follow Alex and Laila Hormose. You got to define why you. I think a lot of us, real estate agents, loan officers, like, this is something we talk about, on our coaching too. Like, we get thrown into this business, and it's not like any other sales business. Like, we're dealing with someone's largest financial asset that they are ever going

to have for the most part. Like most people, their home is the most valuable thing they're ever going to own. And we treat it like a transaction. And I think loan officers, for the most part, especially outside sales, we go out, like you start and they're like, here's the test and here's everything. And they don't teach them how to do a loan. They don't teach them how to structure or anything. They don't teach them any of that.

They tell them go call real estate agents. Like, that is what the majority of loan officers do is just call real estate agents. And if you ask them, why are you calling the real estate agent? I want to get their business. That's the wrong mindset. Okay. But why would they bet their paycheck and their reputation on you? Like, why would they refer you a client?

Well, I answer my phone and I have these great rates and I have all these programs. Yeah, everyone else does too, buddy. Like, it's not, you're not special. That's not a reason. That is literally the core function of your job. Like, imagine telling someone's like, well, why should I buy a key? It's got four wheels. Like, yeah, so does every other car, man.

Like, why would I work with you? So they don't have a defined value proposition. They don't know why them. So one of the first things I would tell you, no matter what business you're starting, know the problem you're solving and who you are solving it for. And then instead of selling a price, because there's always somebody cheaper, sell the process, right? Like, people will pay for value if you can just justify the cost.

Like, your price can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you justify it with enough value, right? And you know who you're selling it to. Like if I go out and I try and sell a grandma, a Bugatti, she's probably not going to buy the Bugatti, right? And even if she could, but if I try and sell a crypto millionaire that's 19 of Bugatti, he's probably going to buy the Bugatti, right? And he'll pay $5 million for that car. Now, it's just going to get him from A to B, but it's a Bugatti. You know what I mean?

He knows it's fast and it looks cool and what comes with, you're selling all of that with it, right? And, you know, I think the first step is define the problem you're solving, who you're going to solve it for, do as much discovery on that person. as you possibly can, know them inside and out the problems they're going to have that they don't even know they're going to have, put a process in place, and just give away the way to fix it, and then sell them to the implementation. The other thing I would tell them is track your numbers. Know what it cost you to acquire a customer, would it cost you to fulfill that customer, and what the lifetime value of that customer is, and your churn? Those are the four most important things you can possibly track into business. There are a lot of other things, but those are the

four most important things that I track. And then know what you're building. Like if you want to get 10, 15K a month, you can do that in any, in any, you know, vertical really within 120 days. If you just look into how to do it, you can actually build it really, really quickly. And it's a mindset shift for those people to be like, are you kidding me? Like I could have done this the whole, yeah, you can. If you're watching this, you can build a business that makes 15K a month net in 120 days. Go read $100 million offers and leads and do it. So that's what it's all about, though. So, If you go in and you really know who you're selling to, why they should work with you, how to fulfill them, building all of that out as a business, it doesn't matter what product you

sell. It can be mortgage, it can be widgets, it can be whatever. As long as you know who you're selling it to and the value you provide to them, what it cost to fulfill and all of that. Like, just learn those skills and make a ton of mistakes. Make a ton of mistakes. I think a lot of people do not start a business because they're afraid of it and they're like, but this is safe. Like this is a safe thing for me to do and I'm going to make money doing this. know it's coming. And that's great. If you want to do that, that's awesome. But if it's something where you're like, I want to build a business, but I'm scared, or I want to make a jump, I'm scared,

look, you live one time. You live one time. Do you want to be 85 in wishing that you had done things, or you want to be 85 and going, I tried it, I failed. It didn't work out, but I tried it. Or I tried it, and what if it works? You know what I mean? Like your first business is probably going to fail. Mine was awful. Your second business might fail. Mine was awful. Right? You make a ton of mistakes, but the mistakes and the failures are where you learn the most valuable lessons to get you where you need to be. Colonel Sanders started KFC when he was like 70 years old, right? So, like, you have time. Just fail until you make it and don't quit.

It's going to be hard. It's going to be so hard. Imagine how hard you think it's going to be way harder than that. But what's on the other side of it is so worth it. I love that. I actually have two questions. So we talked about yesterday how you've managed to cut your cost per acquisition down. Yeah.

You know, two, three hundred percent. Yeah. You know, how did you manage to cut your cost per acquisition? Oh, it was a lot of things. It was a lot of things. I wasn't tracking the right stuff. So, and I, again, I'll give this to Alex and Layla Hormosey. I went out to their acquisition workshop, and they ran through everything and their team, KLO, and all of them ran through everything.

It was incredible. And I realized, like, I am tracking everything, but I'm missing, like, the important things that I'm tracking. Like, I know the numbers. I didn't know they were important. So I went in and I was like, okay, well, to acquire the customer, like, do I really need these four things? It's like, yeah, I need everything that I have to fulfill the customer. Like, I got to have the processor. I got to have setup.

I got to have the LOS. I got to pull credit. Like, I have to have these things. Well, what else could I do? Well, I started looking and I'm like, well, we're getting this many leads and we're booking like this many of them on a call. And that's awesome. Like, our booking rate's really good. Our show rate's not that great.

Like, we book them and then they don't really show to the call. So I'm like, well, that's interesting. what if we put a process in place that would help the bookings for the leads that we've made for pre-approvals and whatnot, actually show up to the call. And our showing rate was like 31%. It was not very good. And this is on referral, by the way, which is even worse. So we went from a 31% showing rate to a 92% showing rate. How did you do that? So we put a process in place that I'll give away. So day one, when you actually get, we changed the way that we were getting introed to the person as well. So a lot of times when we would get the referral or we would get, you know, whoever, they would say, hey, I gave so-and-so. number or hey they're going to call you or you know something like that or the person would just

randomly call it's like you can't be prepared and you can't have that process in place if you don't know when the leads coming or how it's coming so we put in place like hey just group text us like just group text me and the client we're going to set a time we're going to set the meeting we're going to do discovery we do all that but just group text and then we put in place now where it's like the group text gets set our system sets the appointment we get the appointment set with the client and then we have like a drip that goes to the client in between to make sure they show up so we have like one thing roses will do for us at launch, but for now we're doing it manually,

you go in and let's say I'm meeting with you on Tuesday. Well, on Saturday, I'm going to shoot you a video, and it's going to be like, hey, Joe, I've got these two things for you for your pre-approval. One of them's a gift card to Outback. One of them's blah, blah, blah. We give them to every client. Hey, when we meet, which one do you want?

You could do gift cards. You could do hats. You could do merch. You could do whatever. Hey, when we meet, which one do you want? And they will send it to them even if they don't get on the call. Like, even if they don't show, we still mail it to them.

We get the address. We send it to them. We do all that. So, you know, we give them that thing. So then it's like, oh my God, I got to get on this call. He's got my hat. You know, he's got my shirt. He's got whatever.

And then we'll just text and be like, hey, a couple things for you for the call to prep. So excited to talk to you. Boom, boom, boom. I think I've got some ideas for your situation. Like, we just really put that drip in. And now the people are showing up a lot more. So we tripled the amount of the action.

We didn't raise the leads we were getting. We actually got slightly less leads this month. But the amount of them were actually getting through the rest of the funnel is 3x. So because of that, you know, the way to lower your cack, your cost to acquire a customer, the way to lower it is either lower the cost of the customer, what it costs you fulfill them, or raise the value of the customer, or close more of the customers that you have. So if you buy 1,000 leads and you close 100, your cac's higher than if you buy a thousand leads and close 200. Your cat cuts in half, right? Or thereabouts. So, you know,

for us, it was just a matter of, like, what lever to pull. And it was just how do we get more people to actually close. And then we put a couple of things in place for Grow Rewards is something we launched out. So Grow Rewards, let's say you come to me and you want to buy a house and you just aren't qualified. Like we as an industry just drop that person. We may have a little conversation like fix these things and then we'll call you in six months, but like there's no accountability. There's no steps. So we created Grow Rewards and what Grow Rewards is is let's say you apply in your credit shot or maybe you've got a, you know, not enough money to save for down payment or anything like that. You can link your bank accounts to our system through Plaid, through that kind of thing.

It's fully secure. It tracks your rent and your savings, and you earn rewards, you earn points that we will actually give you money towards your-old. It's like market money. It's like to work. Would you build it on Finlocker or something like that? It's built out through a company called Gravy. Yeah, they just do it all for us.

We white label it. Good to go. Super secure. Much cheaper than Finlockers probably. Substantially, yeah. Because that's what they do. Yes. That's cool.

Yeah. That's cool. Maybe we'll add that for the... for e-mortgage, e-mortgage rewards, I guess. Do it. It's good. I mean, it's another way for another value proposition for LOs, but Finlako is trying to gouge you with, right?

I didn't even talk to them. I mean, not gouge, not gouge, but they were more expensive. Yeah, from what I've heard, they're more expensive. They're more expensive than... Gravy. Gravy. Yeah. Shout out gravy.

Yeah. Hey, gravy. Thank you. We're going to probably use you. There you go. Give me a discount. Yeah. We get you a lot of viewers.

Yeah, there you go. More leads as a result of this. All right, cool. So that's all, you know, all on the books now. Now, how do you, right now, how do you continue to find your motivation, just your wife? How do you continue to get that drive? Yeah, so it's not every day. I mean, there are days where I wake up, I'm like, I don't want to do this.

This sucks. I really don't want to do it. But you got to do it anyway. So it's like, that's the secret to like motivation and drive and like, oh, my God. Like, I just don't. Yeah, and me neither. Do it anyway. You don't have to be like motivated.

Just do it anyway. One thing I love that you're doing right now, it's like you're fostering great talent right now. Where's some nuggets that you can share with how to foster awesome talent? You mean like for people you hire and whatnot? Yeah. Yeah, be super picky. Be super picky.

We are incredibly hard to get hired with. And if you get hired in and you're not a good fit, we're incredibly quick to fire you or reassign you. Like we are very, very difficult. to get in with, but once you're there, you're the right fit. So you have to be a superstar to work for my company. We have a $6 million minimum per year for every loan officer. You cannot work here if you don't close. You can't even interview unless you close $6 million, and we verify through MMI. So like you can't even interview. It's just no one shows to the call. We tell

you in the booking thing like, hey, you got to close $6 million or we're not getting on this call. And if they book it anyway, we're not getting on the call. So for sales, we have a very high standard, but I will never ask a single person in this company to do something that I am not doing or would not do or have not done. So it's not like I'm just hiring a bunch of people, like I expect you to do all this stuff. I'm doing it. I'll do it with you. Let's do it together, but it's going to be tough. So I'm fostering very, very, very high quality people because of that, which are hard to find. But they're out there. You just have to know where to look. So we're all in house. They're all in house. Everything's in house. Everything I do is in house. I don't do anything

third party. So, you know, with that being said, to get that talent, you can get them. They're hard to find, but you have to treat like anything else you're selling. Like what I went back to earlier with the entrepreneur, you have to know who you're selling to. You have to know the problems they have, and it's just sales, right? Like there's this one individual that I've been trying to recruit for six months, and she is a superstar. Like I can't even put into words how impressed I am with this woman. And I'm trying to get her for my VP role. And, and I'm, I'm trying to get her for my VP role. She's told me no. She's like, I don't know, blah, blah, blah. So I'm trying very hard to get her. Eventually, I'm going to get you. You know who you are. You're going to work for me one day. I'm going to show you this.

But it's just finding those people and then not letting them go and then not getting a harassment, you know, restraining order on you, but giving them enough value to keep you in the loop. Because I think a lot of people are like, you know, oh, they work at so-and-so company or, you know, whatever. And it's like, they do, but like, will they forever? And like, can you give them more value than Apple can? what I mean, it's difficult to find those people, but when you find them, just add as much value as you possibly can to them and solve their problems, and then make them an offer so good they feel dumb saying no to it. I love that. I love that.

I mean, you know, getting great talent is like, it seems like it's getting more and more difficult. Yeah. It seems, but thankfully, in the last three years in the mortgage industry, we've seen, you know, a lot of the deadweight drop. Yeah. So that's been good. We're seeing a total shift in the dynamic of the narrative in the broker community. It used to be like 99% complaints in the aim community.

Yeah. Now it's like collaboration and more positivity. And a lot of it's attributed to your, you know, your abundance mentality, just always contributing. Well, I appreciate it. Hopefully it's done some impact of good. So a couple last questions I'd like to close out with every podcast is, The first is a three-prong question. Okay.

What is a personal goal that you have for yourself? Yep. What's a business goal that you have for grow? Okay. What's a family goal that you have for your family? Yeah. So personal goal for me, I want to help 100 loan officers reach financial freedom, and I want everybody in my company to reach it within the next 18 months.

I've already told them this, and I put the plan in place. So if you work at Grow, you are going to not worry about money anymore in the next 18 months. We're going to make sure that the work you're putting in is for you, and your dream fits inside of my dream, we're going to get it done. So everybody in my company, I've asked them, what do you want to make? Why do you want to make it?

If you could make anything, what problem would it solve? And then outside of money, what personal goals do you have and how can I help you reach them? And that is my goal over the next 18 months, personally, is to get all of them there. Work goal, business goal,

I mean, we have not, like I was telling before we started rolling, we haven't even started scaling yet. The last two, two and a half years that we've been open, I've just been building a foundation, processes, and procedures, and software and all of that

and making the mistakes while we're small so we don't have to make them while we're big. And we're going to blow this thing up here in the next 120 days. Like it is, people are going to see what we're building. It's coming. So get ready, guys. But, you know, we're going to do that. In the next 12 months, we're going to hit a billion in funded volume as a broker,

which is something you guys have done year after year. That's kind of like we're modeling after. We've got to catch these things. I'd like to just do it every month one day. Yeah, well, one day. That's long-term goal. But, you know, coming up in the next 12 months, that's the goal is a billion. We've already got the plan in place.

the daily task to hit it. It's just a matter of implementation now. And then a family goal is just make sure Athena has everything that she needs. Make sure that she is the person that she should be, support her, make sure that she's happy, and make sure that I'm helping my wife with her because it's our first kid. We're having her in 10 days. And we're excited for it, but I got to make sure that I'm putting my whole life has been on my mission. And I'm super lucky enough to have a wife that supports that mission. And, you know, we've been together since we're 12 years old. So it's... What a beautiful love story, by the way.

Yeah, she let me into a church. I couldn't get in. It was cold. So it's... I love at first sight. But, you know, just making sure that now her dream is happy and making sure that she's taking care of as well. So that's kind of a family goal, I guess. That's awesome. That's awesome. One last question. And I know you're young. So this question is different for you to perceive, but it's part of reality.

When you're in front of the pearly gates... What do you think God's going to tell you? I don't know. I'll find out if I get there. Oh, true young person. We'll see. You know, thanks so much, Russ. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being on the show. Russell Petty, Dominating at Grow Mortgage. Make sure you follow them. Check out Grow. God bless you. Appreciate it.