Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Why Your Business is NOT Growing! ft. Robert Lynn | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 19

Starting point is 00:00:00 What's up everybody? We are live here from the mastermind that UWM has put together now for four years running with one of the original guests, Mr. Robert Lynn, founder and CEO of Future Home Loans, the number one broker in all of the state of Florida. This guy has been dominating for years, but moreover and more importantly, he's been a fast 50 company for four years running. And he continues to win despite any economic. Economic adversity is also a veteran. It's a veteran-owned mortgage company, and he has established an incredible company over these years. We're going to sit down with him, dive into the brilliance that has built the empire of future home loans. We welcome Mr. Robert Lynn. Thank you. Joe, thanks for the introduction.

Starting point is 00:00:50 My mom doesn't even speak that highly of me. I appreciate it. You deserve it. You deserve it, man. And I'm happy to have you on the show today. So, you know, we were just chatting and, you know, we were, we were. the original people here at this masterminds you know it's been it's been a journey it's been a journey and yeah several locations i think we were in Nashville one year Vegas a couple times

Starting point is 00:01:11 Miami a couple times you know we've all man it's been like five years it was awesome i mean you know we got exposed for me we were a newer brokerage and just getting exposed to meeting you and you know you had 10 times the business we did when we started talking and and just learning from you learning from all the folks that we were introduced to. It's been amazing and such a great tool for my business, this little mastermind that we put together. It really has, and I love to learn for you guys.

Starting point is 00:01:42 And it's all been a journey for all of us, right? But you were new, how many years has future been around? Seven years. So, yeah, we were, probably our third year when all this stuff started. Yeah, within the third year, you ranked as the top broker in Florida?

Starting point is 00:01:55 Yeah, we were moving up fast. You know, we weren't quite there yet, but, you know, I think we were on some radars because we did stuff the right way. And we were growing really fast. And maybe I got, I got invited a little before I heard my seat at the party. But now, I think we're...

Starting point is 00:02:13 Not even close, man. Not even close. It wasn't just your charm of good looks. So let's talk about the lineage, right? Like, when did you finish in the... Were you in the military? Yes. Yes.

Starting point is 00:02:27 So I was in the Army for four years. years back of the 90s. So, you know, I told the veterans I've talked to today. It was more, more like being in the Boy Scouts compared to the last, you know, 10, 20 years of what the soldiers went through, you know, after 9-11. But, you know, we still, we trained. We were ready to go. You know, had an awesome time in the military. I played college football out of college, and my grade sucked. And I went back home. My dad said, you know, you don't get to go. We're not paying for school now that you lost your scholarship and you know you don't have to go to the military but i recommend this one or this one so i joined he was in the military growing up so it was always something i i just kind

Starting point is 00:03:11 of envisioned i would be doing nice so how long were you in the military just four years four years okay and then like let's talk about how you got your journey into mortgages so right after the military what'd you do i went back to uh went back to school got my degree on the GI Bill and um you got into say I grew up thinking sales was a four-letter word. You know, I always wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to be, you know, in science. And I was a linguist, I was a Russian linguist in the military. So I went and got a language degree at Florida State.

Starting point is 00:03:45 And some of my friends had a car dealership and said, I've seen you talk to the girls at the bars at night. If you can sell what you're selling there, you can sell cars. So I went in and started selling cars with them. with them and uh you know the rest of this history i got in the got in the sales after that and love it you know love it ever since what year did you get into mortgage got a mortgage 12 years ago it was post crash when kind of everything consolidated into you know the big banks and and um they were on a hiring spree i was in outside sales for office furniture and the whole market tanked

Starting point is 00:04:23 everything was being offshoreed from china so our business went down to pretty much zero and I was kind of looking for something else. And I went and interviewed for a mortgage job at Bank of America. They were building out their call center. And I walked in and got hired on the spot. Didn't even know if I was going to show up the first day because, you know, it really wasn't what I wanted to do. But I showed up.

Starting point is 00:04:48 I, you know, I took the first phone calls. And, you know, I felt at love with talking to customers, helping customers, treating them like family. So you started in retail? Yeah. I was a call center refied back then. It was harp, harp, harp, and you know, you'd get 20 calls a day because they inherited that whole country ride portfolio. So it was every shit show loan that had ever been written was calling us every day.

Starting point is 00:05:13 And it's quite the baptism, you know, haven't been in as long as a lot of people. But I took more calls than probably most everybody in the business, you know, for about a 10-year period. Wow. So you were in the weeds, really, really in the weeds. Yeah, yeah. I had a loan that took me a year to close. I had the site record when I closed 54 loans and like our average closing was four to six months back then. So you started Future seven years ago.

Starting point is 00:05:40 Yeah. And what what inspired you to start your own company from, and you went from Bank of America straight starting future? I had worked at a couple places. At that point I was at DITAC and I was working in Uncompass. I mean, have you worked in Encompass? Oh, yeah, of course. Clunky. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:02 I mean, it makes you want to throw your computer out the window. Yeah, and slow. Slow. And I'm one, when I'm, when I'm, when I was in my best, I needed speed. I needed, I had five, ten screens open. I was multitasking. I needed to keep, I'm one of those if I'm not constantly going. I'll lose, like I'll lose my momentum.

Starting point is 00:06:23 And I kind of just, I couldn't take it. It was so clunky. You would get going on one thing and then have to wait for it. You know, you had the thing spinning all the time. And I'm like, this is horrible. And then it just started also adding up. Just our rates sucked every time a customer would call. And it was a broker.

Starting point is 00:06:41 We would, like, oh, that's not real. That person's lying to, you know, we didn't even fathom the fact that the rates could be so much better. You know, so I started doing the research. And I'm like, there's got to be a better way. This can't be the best way to do it. And that was really the only aspect of the business that I knew. So, yeah, I started looking and kind of, there wasn't up brokers are better. There wasn't a UWM trying to help everybody.

Starting point is 00:07:06 Yeah. There wasn't anywhere near the resources that there are now. It was, you know, I found an old chat room from 10 years earlier that was when the broker channel was humming. And I just went through some old stuff. And I'm like, oh, okay, I need that. I don't need that. What is this? What is this?

Starting point is 00:07:23 So just kind of put it together over, you know, three or four months of, you know, I didn't even know what questions to ask or who to ask them to. So I just kind of figured it out. So you figured out how to be a broker on your own? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we signed up with UWM was our first lender that approved us and me. And, you know, I was embarrassed to even ask my AE. The dumb questions that I didn't.

Starting point is 00:07:48 Because they were so dumb, I thought they might just, oh, we're not working with this guy. He's an idiot. So yeah, I was mortified when we started because I had no idea what I was doing. I did it all by myself. So this was seven years ago. You did it all by yourself? And you went and you got your own, you got your broker's license on your own? Yeah, yeah, I got it.

Starting point is 00:08:08 I had a buddy that was an A.E. And he kind of told me a few places, but they didn't take new brokers at that bank. And he kind of told me how to, you know, basically gave me some guidance. And, you know, it was figuring that out and then figuring out the license and then figuring out the credit bureaus and then, you know, trying to get a name that future home loans. I was riding my bike one day talking to a buddy and I was, and I said, I said, future. And they're like, yeah, in the future, you're going to need to get a name. I'm like, no, future's the name. Yeah, you want to end up being my partner in this and he was like, well, that is really good.

Starting point is 00:08:50 That is a good name and it was like it was in time to like ride the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep. So, you know, I hauled ass home real quick and I googled it and there was no future home loan. So I went to the patent office and, you know, got my, my trademark. You know, I got the, I went to Fiverr and paid 50 bucks and got the logo done. And the first one that came back, it was our logo and it's still our logo. And I loved it from day one. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:09:19 That's awesome. And then I went and figured out how to get the service mark. And basically, if you're going to do it, do it yourself kind of person. You can have a hard time training and teaching and coaching people to do it if you're not willing to do it yourself. Let me ask you this. You started off like with a cush job at DITAC, probably making a couple hundred grand. Yep. What were you thinking to go, you know what, I'm going to go start my own company and go commission only?

Starting point is 00:09:47 and I'm going to risk making zero dollars for months and months and months or maybe never making a dollar. Yeah, it's, you know, it was a different mindset. My wife was really curious. My girlfriend at the time was really curious about that. You know, but she had a stable job that she'd been at for a long time and it gave me some stability. And yeah, it's just it was, I knew a lot of really good people. And there was a lot of really good mortgage people that I met. The jobs were pretty bad, but the culture was just great.

Starting point is 00:10:22 Like, the folks we worked with really cared about each other. And what sucked is nobody would ever try to get a referral from a friend or a family. You didn't want a referral. You knew you didn't have a good raid. You knew you weren't giving good service. You know, it was just, like, once I started to figure out that I wasn't doing what was best for my customer, so it got harder and harder for me to, just because money doesn't like it's never motivated me I like competition you know it's how we

Starting point is 00:10:53 keep score so I'm not dumb either but you know it's how do you take care of the most people and I'm a firm believer that if you take care of the person treat them like family everything else is going to take care itself so I was like it went away I had a strong feeling that it was the best place for customers to get alone I figured it would come back and good timing I got lucky you know you really like you invoke that entrepreneur spirit but you went on a limb yeah i mean did it cause conflict in in your marriage your wife was like i mean you know she was it was my girlfriend at the time and yeah it caused a little conflict because we just bought a house and um she's like you're gonna make zero dollars yeah there's a there's a very you know there's a very good chance i

Starting point is 00:11:41 wasn't but you know I have after when I went into mortgage my last business I was pretty successful in and then that market kind of crashed which business was that was I was an office furniture manufacturers rep I have a own company for the whole state of Florida that caused me to tie my belt up and then I've always lived well like after that I had lived well within my means so it wasn't like I didn't have a thousand dollar car payment I drive a Hyundai still yeah my house is paid off I got no debt now like it's I don't you know I don't live outside of my means I live very well within my means I'm pretty all right people I'm I'm cheap I'm frugal you know but I'm

Starting point is 00:12:32 that built that gave me the ability to know hey I don't need to make $15,000 this month so you know I can I can go six months without turning a paycheck. And that's kind of the way I look at it now. This past year was tough. We didn't do quite as well as we did a couple years before, but live within my means. And that gave me the ability to be able to, you know, not sweat.

Starting point is 00:12:56 I was never month to month. I never always could be able to look at the big picture. And, you know, that was a blessing. You know, one thing I noticed with entrepreneurs is, you know, they're able to really, juggle within a small budget. And me personally, I grew up in a third, I was born in a third world.

Starting point is 00:13:16 I call it a sixth world because I was born in a third world, but I was born in the poorest part of the third world. So that's really like a sixth world. So, you know, I always have been incredibly frugal. And it's allowed me to grow. But it's because I'm from a third world. Why are you so frugal? Like you're born in America in a country of abundance.

Starting point is 00:13:37 Like, Frugal, yeah, we were pretty poor growing up. I mean, you know, my dad was joined the military, and both my grandfathers were in the military, and my granddad worked for the railroad, and probably for the area, middle class, but once you start getting out of the southeast where it was really cheap, you know, and it was part of our culture, they still remembered the, you know, the hard times and the Great Depression, And, you know, you'd still hear those stories growing up. And it's just kind of the way we were raised.

Starting point is 00:14:14 I remember sitting around when my dad had to balance the checkbook when we got our first VCR when I was a kid. And, you know, it was a big deal that we saved up that money and could go buy a VCR. And then you'd have to go down to, you know, 20 miles away to rent a video, you know. But I remember those things. And it was, those were big things for me growing up.

Starting point is 00:14:35 It was, we saved. And I didn't get much. We ate home every meal. So, it's just frugal. Beginning. Yeah, frugal. And it stayed with you. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:14:47 Yeah. It's definitely the way I'll try to live. Everybody who I knew that's successful is frugal. It's not like no one wants to just be crazy abundant. You know, it's, and I worry for my children, I want them to have that mindset. How can you preserve that mindset, regardless of how successful you are? Yeah, it's tough. I mean, it's hard. I don't have kids myself. My wife had kids that are out of the house. But, yeah, I mean, growing up with, there gets spoiled so quick and so easy and everything kind of gets taken for granted. It's got to be really hard. You know, you had this help with all the loan offers, you got the stuff that you hear about how much gets taken for granted. It's, it's just a different mentality. And I don't know. It's, it's, um, it's just a different mentality. And I don't know. It's, it's, um, And every time my wife goes to Publix and somehow my grocery bill is $2,000 and I finally read the bill and I yell at her.

Starting point is 00:15:47 I'm like, what the hell's going on here? What are we spending his money out? We're going to Whole Foods, man. It's like my wife only wants to shop that Whole Foods. Yeah. With bananas on sale at least? Yeah, I got her going back to Walmart groceries here lately after I saw that last bill. In Publix?

Starting point is 00:16:04 Is that, that's the... Yeah, it's our... supermarket and is that like a whole foods version it's like well it's not supposed to be but i think it's more expensive than whole foods now i mean it's right up there with it like you don't get those big delicious butterfly pork chops like they get a whole foods at public those things are good i'll let her spend money on that yeah that's a good that's a good investment so every every uh successful entrepreneur has that like a routine that they start their day with what what how do you start your day. What's your morning routine? I naturally have always, since I was in the military, I get up early.

Starting point is 00:16:41 How early? I'm not one of those that tries to, it just, I usually, I literally roll over and it's it's sometime between 3.30 and 5.30 really does usually what it is. When it's 3.30, I make myself stay in bed until at least four. But then I'm like, I'm usually just wide awake. So you just lay in there waiting until, you know, clock. You know, something. Sometimes I can sleep a little later, but it's very rare. And that's when I get up, it's quiet. Nobody's bothering you. Nobody's texting you.

Starting point is 00:17:12 Nobody's calling you. I usually jump on the computer, get some emails knocked out so everybody knows I was up at 4 in the morning or 5 in the morning when they see the time stand. You know, you want people to know about it too. And, you know, I usually get coffee and watch a podcast. I like it one of the Diary of the CEO podcast or Lex Freeman podcast. There's several podcasts. I like the long-form ones.

Starting point is 00:17:38 And I jump on there and I'll watch those. Nice. Yeah. So you podcast in the morning, get up very, very early. Every CEO I know has a very similar routine, you know, get up super early, start with some work, do some, you know, meditation. And I ask, because I always learn. I always want to know what other successful entrepreneurs are doing.

Starting point is 00:17:58 So let me ask you this. Like, what do you think inspired you to start your own? company? What was the source of that inspiration? Was it a mentor? Was it a vision? Was it, you know, someone, was it just, you're just crazy? No, I think it was just frustration. I think it was just the fact that every person I work with, like, why aren't we doing this? This is the dumbest way to possibly do this. And nobody could give me an answer other than this is the way we do it. And that's not an answer that I approve of. And I left, there was a short time after I left DITAC, and there was a retail, I was a wholesale

Starting point is 00:18:47 that was trying to go start kind of this retail branch model thing. And I went to work with them for like two months. And everything they did was just dumb. And I'm like, I can do this way better by myself. I can figure this. out and my worst case scenario is better than what we got right now and you know it was like why am i doing this i'd let me you know i've pulled some math together and i've got a quick little business plan and i came up with some projections and if i can if i can close five loans a month if i

Starting point is 00:19:21 can get two or three other people we can close 10 loans a month like i can i can make this work and that's how it started you know five 10 loans a month now Our pipeline's over 200 and coming out of the slow season. And, you know, we're ready for a big 2024. You've had people working for you since you started. Well, it was, it was, it was me. And then I talked by another dude, really smart, Nick Walker, talked to him to, you know, kind of joining me after the first couple months. We got it started.

Starting point is 00:19:54 And we partnered up. And his wife really talented. She worked with us doing marketing. Mary and then three or four months after that we had started doing some loans and three or four months out of that like we were like okay we might want to hire somebody and a really good friend of mine worked with movement and he had sent me five straight declines that movement had and I closed all five and he's like why am I still working here all my loans getting closed over there so he came

Starting point is 00:20:30 and joined me and then two other people came and joined us kind of right at that same time. So, you know, when we thought, okay, in three to six months we'll hire somebody. Within two months, we had three people on board. And then it was just every aspect of the business kind of went like, okay, let's think about doing this in six months, and then it happens next month. And let's think about doing this in next year and it happens in three months. So it just, it was right place, right time seven years ago. You remember it was, you know, it was just taking that big, you know, the retail was just starting to hit that top of the curve.

Starting point is 00:21:07 Yeah. And Holstale was just starting to take off. So it was the right place, right time. And we surround ourselves with really good people with good reputations. I want to talk about, you know, one, did you ever envision that future would be the number one broker in the whole state of Florida? Probably, I probably envisioned it when I was walking, but I didn't believe. it you know like you think about all this stuff and yeah we can you know why not us you know but you have doubts you have fears you have all the you know the negative but you just you have to

Starting point is 00:21:41 push through that as a CEO and you have a leader and you know now it's my job to drive the vision and you know I've never been the most positive one and everything I've always been a cheerleader of a team person you know but I'm also I keep it real so it's it's tough position for me to be in now is this last couple years you had to be really positive 21 22 yeah yeah 22 and 22 and 23 were yeah they were tough and you know they I felt like this is going to be the best for our business I feel like it's going to be good but you know having people listen to you trust you leave their couch when they're sitting there worried if they're going to even make their you know being able to make their house payment next next month but you know

Starting point is 00:22:27 we always look out for people I'm never going to let anybody working with us. Star, we're going to go without. You know, we're going to take care of people. Again, that's one thing I really admire about you, and I've met people that work for future, and I've met, you know, a lot of people that work for you. And you've got an awesome culture.

Starting point is 00:22:43 Like, what is some of the secret sauce that you have that's allowed you to develop such an incredible culture? Because I know your people, they'll take bullets for you. Yeah. So when I was telling you about the bank, how the job, every aspect of the child, Top suck, but the culture was really good. Andy Fulton was our site leader.

Starting point is 00:23:03 And, you know, our joke would he would come give you the quarterly pay cut, because they would cut your pay just about every quarter in the bank. And you would leave the pay cut meeting feeling sorry for Andy for having to give you the message. You know, and then he went off and took over Charlotte. And then two years ago, he became my president of sales. I hired him. He was the big boss site leader when I got into mortgage. and now he works for us because, you know, he had set that culture,

Starting point is 00:23:31 which the culture was just high emotional intelligence, which I don't have the highest emotional intelligence. Like, I care about people. I could put myself in other shoes. If somebody's feelings are hurt, I'm not, maybe not the most understanding person of, you know. I get a lot of that from my wife, too, you know. Where is your emotional intelligence at? Right.

Starting point is 00:23:51 But I brought him on, and he's got that, you know. And, you know, it's what I partner with Nick. I can come up with some great ideas and I can sell a lot of stuff, but it was him being able to bring me back. Like, if I can't convince him, it's a good idea. I need to rethink what I'm doing, you know? So it's just surrounding yourself with people that are similar with you with what's most important to them, which everybody in our company is the most important person is everybody in our company.

Starting point is 00:24:20 It's never about a dollar. It's never about making the most money. It's never about that. You can say that, but you have to do it and live it every day and just always do what's right for people. Sometimes it's not the best for the business, but we do what's right. We've had to make decisions on some folks that we were more concerned about the person than the business at times. And those are tough things, but I think if everybody knows that the culture from the top down actually cares and it's not just lip service,

Starting point is 00:24:55 then everybody kind of starts to care together, and that's what builds a strong culture. That's awesome. And, like, really, how much time do you dedicate to that culture building? Like, do you do a lot of events? Do you do dinners? You know, outings? What are you doing to do that culture building?

Starting point is 00:25:13 Yeah, so we do stuff. I mean, we do, we've got to, you know, but sometimes it's just the little things. It's like we have a good month. I'll fill up a cooler beers and go in and sit with our concierge team, which does all our loan setups and, you know, serve them beers. You know, we can have a team pickleball tournament that doesn't cost a lot of money and we go play that together.

Starting point is 00:25:38 You know, we try to give awards to our top producers. Well, then the ones that don't get them get pissed off. So you got to be careful about that. But, yeah, it's just little things, but it's, you know, You know, like my ops leader, and they got chocolate for Valentine's Day, took it and hand-delivered it to our processors that, you know, we're working in the market remotely. It's just having a bunch of folks that really think about the little things way better than I do because that's not something I'm going to come up with.

Starting point is 00:26:10 Yeah. But I love the ideas, and once we get good ideas, I'm really good at taking good ideas and say, let's do this good idea versus, you know, coming out. Yeah. Versus coming up with them or necessarily implementing them. And it's because of the talent pool that you got. Yeah. I mean, we've got our ops.

Starting point is 00:26:31 Our ops director is the hardest working person I've met my entire career in mortgage. Like he is a grinder. I love him. He comes up with hobbies just to take his mind off of work. I mean, the only reason he's got any hobbies is because he would be obsessed about work 24-7. You know, we got a trainer, an onboarder who, like everybody's best friend. Every, like, just the most friendliest,

Starting point is 00:26:56 she's got a superpower of friendliness. So it's putting those right people in the right places. And then really building off that is the key to all of it. And plus you want to be around the people that you like. Yeah. And it's also good that their skill sets aren't necessarily my skill sets, you know, like our ops director can take something, map it out, follow up, like do 20 steps on.

Starting point is 00:27:21 on a plan. I can't do that. I can get us through the first four or five and then like we need to have some momentum there. So surrounding yourself with people that care and also, you know, put forth in that effort. You know, we're going to talk about your growth now because future continues to grow. And, uh, and I'll talk about the future of future to sec, but like, you won the Fast 50 award for four years consecutively. And that, that's an incredible award to win. How are you continuing to grow at that pace yeah that was the coolest one that was the one that I when I started the business that was the one that you said like did you envision it like that's the one I envisioned I want to win it because that's all businesses in

Starting point is 00:28:05 then the whole area and it's like you have to send your taxes and you can't you can't pencil whip that one they actually verify yeah you know they verify yeah you tax return verifying award yeah it's tax return verified and our first year we were number number three out of the fast 50 so it's super cool how do we do it we right now we're probably not going to make you five years in a row I'll be honest because the last two years we're tough and you know we held serve I think we we probably stayed within 5% of where we were you know but when the industry's down 20 30% you know I still think it's a win so we're still growing it just doesn't quite feel like we're growing that fast now um you but you are

Starting point is 00:28:54 growing because i see your how many LOs are you at now i think we got 70 75 LOs 75 LOs and that's how many are and it's all decentralized yeah yeah all decentralized independent loan officers how are you managing 75 LOs yeah it's it's it's um that's you hire good people you bring you you You train them well. Like the beauty is we brought in half of our people. We just all worked with and knew. And I've listened to their calls back in the day when I was learned. Their sales manager, or we have a sales manager that was managing them.

Starting point is 00:29:33 Like we know good loan officers from, so we got really lucky with, at the right place at the right time, we brought in a lot of really good people that didn't need much management, which allows us to kind of focus on bringing the new people, understand the way we do business, why we do business. and it's implemented technology. You know, I think we talked last year, I showed you some of the technology we had built out. I actually wanted to talk to you.

Starting point is 00:29:57 That was going to be my next question. You're big on proprietary technology. You own your tech. Yeah, yeah. We built it out. And it was really, you know, when you're managing all these people, you have to have some systems in place. And we built out systems where we all communicated.

Starting point is 00:30:13 And one we called our hub, FHO1 is our website, and it's our hub and everything about a loan goes in here. You know, when we've got a newer loan officer, I've got a five-person concierge team that takes their application and we can double check it, troubleshoot it. Hey, I'm having an AUS era. Hey, I need some help with this. We've got a credit issue.

Starting point is 00:30:37 They've got people that they can go to that can actually help them that are in the systems every day. So you have to build these, if you are going to grow a scale, I think and provide the level of support where you turn a $2 million dollar producer into a $5 million producer into a $10 million producer. The ultimate goal, let's get them all to $20 million producers. Yeah. That's what you want is $120 million producers.

Starting point is 00:31:03 And then you got a really, really good mortgage company. And then you're going to have your 40s and 50s in there too. But it's, yeah, the process in place to help them grow their scale, double their business. But like I said, I'm frugal. I don't have 20 people doing that. We've got, you know, we've got some people that are a little more entry level. They're helping with the systems. I've got a trainer on boarder that kind of takes it from our, you know,

Starting point is 00:31:29 president of sales as kind of the primary recruiter. His highest and best use isn't walking them through systems. So, you know, you take that off his plate and kind of do that 80-20 rule they talk about when you want to 10-X your business where you take, you know, what is the 80% that doesn't provide revenue off your plate? Let's put it on somebody else. And, you know, we've got our, what's our highest and best use? What's our $500 an hour work?

Starting point is 00:31:54 What's our $200 an hour work? And what's the $20 hour work? And it's getting people out of the $20 hour work and into their highest best use. Love it, love it. Now, let me ask you this because I know you're really, really busy. And you got a wife, you got a big business. You know, how are you balancing running this big company and, you know, and all the demands of loan officers, especially in.

Starting point is 00:32:17 a market that was incredibly volatile yeah it's hard i mean you know it's hard it's stressful you know and when you when you're feeling the stress you can have you know it's bad eating habits bad health habits you can get you get so focused into the stress that you don't take yourself out of it you know my health would had gotten into a point where it wasn't the best a couple years ago and it was you know but you have to have balance you have to i call it pay myself first. So after I do, you know, my coffee, my emails, my, I get on the bike and I ride for an hour or two. I'll get on the rower and like you have to have that, that time where you're out, you know, I say that I got to pay myself first because if you're not physically happy, healthy,

Starting point is 00:33:09 functional, like everything else just as, you know, it's, it's, you're going to, you're going to snowball in the other direction. So you have to make yourself do it. Yeah. have to and it helps by having the team. Like I just said, I've got a president of sales that handles a lot of my stress. I've got an ops director that handles a lot of the stress. I got my process manager that's awesome. Handles a lot of the stress on escalations. So, you know, when stuff gets to me, all I'm really doing is just jumping in the system,

Starting point is 00:33:41 making sure I know what I'm yelling about and just yelling at somebody. But you have to have the people and the structures in place that, get everybody as effectively focused on their highest and best use as possible and that allows you to focus on hey i got to i've got to focus on my health we've got to spend time with you know have dinner with a family you know you've got to you got to put the work in and not just in the business it's got to be business health family everything so you're yeah you're finding time for everything Yeah, I mean, I What goes out of the window is

Starting point is 00:34:19 You know, a lot of the late nights Drinking and stuff I used to like to do You know, we'll probably have a little bit of that Here the next couple days, but You do that once a year? Yeah, it's pretty rare You know, because you know, that hangover is Is it rough work?

Starting point is 00:34:35 Yeah, it lasts a lot longer Now when you've got a lot of other stuff you need to be doing Yeah, it sure does Are you still in the weeds? Are you still originating? Are you focused on growth? Yeah, I pull myself out of the originating early on. It was like a year or two in.

Starting point is 00:34:51 I stopped doing that. It was. Oh, biz-deaf. Yeah. So you're focusing in the business or on the business and I wanted to work on the business. And I didn't think I could build a team like I did in our market if they're being overshadowed by an owner or producer. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:35:09 You know, it was a, it was a conscious decision that I don't want to compete with my folks because It's just in a small market like ours, you know, you're not going to get a player that's going to come play second fiddle to an owner that is throwing their weight around. So, yeah, and it's business development, supporting them. How do I, how do we help them? How do we build this? How do we, you know, attack new markets? Yeah, that's where we're. So what do you guys do in most of your own?

Starting point is 00:35:41 You guys are mostly purchase focused? Yeah, we're probably 90s. $6, 97% purchase, probably 95, 90% since we started the business, but a lot heavier. That makes you basically like your recession proof. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, don't get, don't get it twisted when the rates went down to three and I was not capturing all the refies. I should be capturing. I had a lot of stress and a lot of FOMO.

Starting point is 00:36:08 Yeah. So we are really focused on getting better at that next, you know, next time that comes. to take advantage of it but yeah we don't feel like it's coming anytime soon so don't worry i know it i don't tell anybody especially people here but i don't mind it you know going on another year till i get all my ducks in a row um yeah we're not going to fall for that twice though we'll be ready next time well you're ready now because now you're putting the technology pieces in place to make sure that boom yeah it hits everybody who all your database knows yep yeah that's that's that's That's what we're doing and we're building out these database journeys now and really going deep into the weeds on those with like what is how do we get the ball down the field.

Starting point is 00:36:53 You know, I think we've been talented and lucky where we've just stood on the goal line through Helmarries and people have caught the ball and scored touchdowns for us. But it's like what is the, what is my playbook to get a first down to move the ball down the field? How do we get a touchdown? What does that look like with a new referral partner? How do we impress this listing agent? How do we parlay that into a coffee, a training? Are we running a CE forum? You know, I'm really diving into that on past clients, but on referral partners as well.

Starting point is 00:37:26 Like, what is this journey that we're doing? And how do we help? How do we add value as a company? So you're doing CEs for your realtor partners? Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a big win for us. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:37:38 That's a new concept. I mean, I know other companies are doing it, but you had to get your company approved with the Department of Real Estate there in Florida? Yeah, we are a, we're a school in Florida. And a full licensed continuing education school? Yep, yep. What's it called? The future youth is what we call it. But I came up with that before the other youths came up.

Starting point is 00:38:10 Yeah, that's huge for us. And that's part of our path. That's how do we add value to a, my trainer will go out and hold these CEs. We've got other, we got LOs approved to do it. I went down to a VA CE that our rock star in Melbourne did a couple weeks ago. And she killed it. And three new agents got each center of contract within three days. that she'd never even talked to the agent or the client before this.

Starting point is 00:38:44 Just had the contracts land in the inbox. So it's, um, what inspired you to start a school? Uh, well, we were outsourcing it and we had to pay somebody to do it. And then you, you know, it's like, well, what does this cost me to get this done? And, you know, I think the recurring theme here is, I don't want to spend it. So what do we cost to do it? And then we just went through the certification process and we're approved. And then who can, so you have a trainer though?

Starting point is 00:39:09 Yeah. but it's still cheaper to hire a trainer to teach the classes than it is to go well she so she does a lot of stuff like she does our onboarding our our train like there's there's everybody in our job kind of has three or four in our you know you're you're saying way small business everybody's got to wear three or four hats yeah that's kind of one of her hats is like we're trying to train we call it we stole it from u.m but we try to run sales plays every week. And, you know, we're trying to choreograph these sales plays now that our realtor partners can do them and run them as well. And, you know, how do we provide content? How do we, you know, provide

Starting point is 00:39:49 social? How do we, you know, what's the message when you make the phone call? So we're trying to choreograph all that. And that's part of what we're doing. And the better we get on that, it just, my mindset is I want to have a 20-minute TED talk on everything we do. I want to have an hour training on everything we do, and I want to have a two-hour CE on everything we do. And if we're not thinking about all those three things at once, we're kind of missing the boat. My big motto this year that everybody's sick of hearing is

Starting point is 00:40:19 focus, follow-up and finish. So everything we do, every idea we have, every concept we talk about, we need to be able to explain what our focus is on it, what's our follow-up routine that's going to go, and what is the finish line look like, so we know if we score a touchdown or not. That is powerful.

Starting point is 00:40:39 That's powerful. I got a couple more questions, and I've been holding you up here. What do you think the future is a future home loans? Like, what's the grand vision for you? Yeah, that's a tough one. You know, you see the bigger companies like yours. You know, I love watching what you've done

Starting point is 00:40:59 and, you know, meeting you over these years. I've studied kind of how you grew your company. And then you've got even the bigger ones out there, the nexus of the world, that you know, they've got a ton of people I don't know. I don't necessarily want to be the biggest. I want to be the best and Yeah, I think my goal is how do I get I don't know if it's 200 loan officers 200 long officers and they won't maybe I don't know what that number is, but how do we get them to be the best that they can be and how do I walk into a room or a a or a convention or a, you know, a title company party, and they see the future guy show up or girl show up

Starting point is 00:41:43 and all the other LOs walk out the door like, oh, we're screwed. Futures here. That's my goal. That's where I want us to be. I want us to be the most professional, respected, almost a little feared person in the game. And that doesn't necessarily mean we're the biggest. That doesn't necessarily we got the most LOs. I think it means we got the best.

Starting point is 00:42:04 LOs and we're providing the best customer experience and we're providing the best level of service to our referral partners or adding the most value that's that's and I think everything will take care of itself if we keep focused on that I love it I love it and I like to end every podcast with this question what's a personal goal that you have it's a three-prong question what's a personal goal that you have what's a business goal and we kind of hinted at that with future but just for this year not the grand vision just the business goal for 2024 and what's a family goal that you have okay so a personal goal

Starting point is 00:42:42 um i've been cycling a lot i want to do a hundred mile uh ride this year um so that one's tough on your own or in a competition no it'll be i mean whether i sign out with a group or whatever um yeah 100 100 miles straight through i've gotten up to like 60 before but my back's a little especially after that plane ride gets a little tight so we'll see business goal 100 mile ride man

Starting point is 00:43:12 so that's my goal this year that business goal you know we want to do we want to do like 6, 700 million this year we want to add about 30 yellows and we want a double production for everybody that we got is kind of our goal I love that

Starting point is 00:43:31 And then family goal, you know, my wife talks about trips all the time, so it'll be some whatever trip she wants to go on, but it will be a big, nice trip somewhere. Just one trip? Well, I mean, she's, it'll be several, I'm sure. But, yeah, I mean, I enjoy Europe, so I like to go over there a couple. Do you ever year? I have the last couple years. I like a couple weeks over there.

Starting point is 00:44:02 Where do you go? Last couple years I've gone to London for the Jaguars football game. The Jaguars play over there. So we go to that, be some of my friends. I love Germany. Went to Switzerland last year, year before last, for Christmas. Spent Christmas in Switzerland. That was fun.

Starting point is 00:44:25 So, yeah, I mean, traveling. I got some places left on my bucket list. just don't want to hit. My wife asked me yesterday, like, what's your bucklist? I'm like, I was always too poor to figure out a bucket list. And now, like, oh, I can afford a bucket of lips. Like, I don't know my buckles. Yeah, well, you got to go.

Starting point is 00:44:44 We did a couple years ago, we did a river cruise, and it was, you know, started in Germany and went through Budapest. And a lot of old people, so that's a little bit annoying. But it was just so awesome to be able to travel through all these, you know you look at some place that's old there it's 2,000 years old you know something something old for us in the U.S. is two or three hundred years old and they're like that's the new that's the new school over there you know so it's just the whole different perception on time it's really good because we get so fast pace and yeah kind of so into ourselves here that it's good

Starting point is 00:45:22 to kind of step back and realize it didn't always have to be quite so hectic yeah especially like with our industry. It's always so hectic. We're doing 10 things at once. We're trying to balance our lives. And that's awesome that you're getting to do these awesome trips, man. Robert, it's been awesome to have you on the coffees for closers. On coffees for closers on tour,

Starting point is 00:45:42 so it's been great. Thank you guys. Make sure if you're in Florida, you've got to check this guy out. He is crushing. He's going to make you super successful. God bless you man. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate you. Thanks for being there. Take dominated. Appreciate your friendship, man.

Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - Why Your Business is NOT Growing! ft. Robert Lynn | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby Ep. 19

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