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To Earn Repeat And Referral Business…... Keep Delivering Value!!
We're so glad to have you joining us. This show is created by Mortgage Professionals. It is for mortgage professionals and we're so grateful to have you as our audience. Our commitment is to bring you timely information that you use anytime and anywhere. Many of you are doing that and telling others about it. I can’t thank you enough. Downloads are crazy on the show, so a lot of it has to do with the first part of the format and how we give you a lot of information. We try to tighten all that up a little bit, so we get it done in a timely manner. Also, the Hot Topic segment is really getting a lot of downloads and traction. In this episode, we've got Peter Paglia, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Revenue Officer for HomeBinder. As we look at the industry and the market, and the refinances are going away, how can we stay more in front of the customers? This industry has a terrible track record of repeat business and customers. It's usually across the board. Some are doing better than others. The purpose of this show and having Peter on is to talk about something you can do to stick with, keep, and hold on to your customers. Joining me on the microphone again is my co-host, Jack Nunnery. It’s good to have you back. David, it’s good to be here. We also have an Industry Syndicate. I’m grateful to be a part of that syndicate. Check out IndustrySyndicate.com. Also, I want to say thank you to our sponsors, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, as well as Finastra Fusion Mortgagebot Solution. You can experience the power of a fully integrated approach to mortgage lending. It simplifies the borrowing experience and streamlines the process for employees and customers. Right behind that is Insellerate. They do a great job through their leading-edge technology of connecting mortgage experts and their borrowers through pre-signed campaigns. Josh Friend has a great approach to it, and when you combine these two technology solutions, excellent things start happening. Also, Lenders One, check out what they're doing. Justin Demola was on June 2021. I was talking to him again and our friends over at The Mortgage Collaborative, TMC. It was a great conversation. Tom Gallucci and the team are doing a great job at Mortgage Collaborative so is Demola. Check out both of these co-ops. We belong to both of them. I encourage you to do the same. Also, The Community Mortgage Lenders of America is a great association, as well as Knowledge Coop, which has a great job of helping you teach and train your people through a learning management system. Learn about LMS from Alice Alvey many years ago. The importance of having a good LMS or Learning Management System cannot be understated, especially at this time when we have so much knowledge that we have to transfer out to our people. What solution are you using? Check out KnowledgeCoop.com. When it comes to recruiting, we have two sponsors that do a great job at helping in your recruiting efforts, Mobility MMI, Mortgage Market Intelligence, as well as Modex. We use both of them and many others are using both of these, like the two co-ops, the Mortgage Collaborative and Lenders One. These two work nicely side by side, working with you to help recruit top and lows. Get metrics on your market or, and here's the most important part, markets you're considering going into. Who are the top real estate companies in the area? What are they really doing for business? Who are they doing business with on the mortgage side? All of that is inside these two pieces of technology. It’s so powerful, especially as you're looking at who doesn't want to recruit as this recruit sitting here in front of me that I like so much and produced what he says he does. You got to have these jewels, folks. It’s important. Also, Snapdocs does such a great job. We're working when it comes to eSignatures. When you see the name Snapdocs, it can be slightly misleading. Go back and read the interview that we did with Vishal Rana back on September 13th, 2021. It'll give you insights. This is one of those leading technology companies that is coming up. I’m telling you, pay attention to what's happening at Snapdocs. Amy Moses and I are good friends and we're texting back and forth on all the latest developments. I got to get them back on talking about it. Also, a special thank you goes out to my co-host Jack, as well as Rob, Les, Alice, Allen, and Matt. They have further contributions to this show each and every week. Now, let's move into the Hot Topic segment. We have, as a special guest, Peter Paglia, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Revenue Officer at HomeBinder. We're going to be discussing how home buyers are helping lenders become more valuable to their referral partners and creating a greater level of stickiness. How can we hold onto the borrower through that experience and have a repeat customer? We badly need it, so we're excited to get into that discussion. Peter goes by Pete, so not showing disrespect. Pete, good to have you on the show. David, thank you so much. I really appreciate the time. You bet. First of all, I always like to get our audience and let them get to know you a little bit. Tell us a little bit about your journey, your background and what has led you to a HomeBinder. Thank you very much. By the way, I’m also in the Northeast here in New England, so winter is not far away. I wish I were down South. Thank you very much for the time. I really appreciate it. You guys do so much important work for the mortgage industry and very valuable stuff. In terms of my background, David, you've mentioned drones. I’ve spent my entire career in technology, mostly in the venture-backed technology space, building tech companies. I’ve got an engineering background, so like most engineers, my mindset is about solving problems. I’ve always had a particular passion for figuring out how technology, back to your point about drones, can solve complex business issues. This has led me into the startup world throughout my career in markets such as mobile, telecom, IoT, and automotive. Coincidentally, one of the things that you talk about with unregulated drones is interference. A lot of the things that we used to work on is how to mitigate interference when drones are flying or even autonomous vehicles are driving. There are lots of impacts of technology on the business. In terms of what these markets have in common, there's an interdependent ecosystem, and all of these businesses are trying to solve hard problems for the consumer. That's where I’ve spent a lot of my time in my career, working with businesses to determine how they can deliver high value and sustainable value for the end user. With regards to HomeBinder, I actually met the Founder, Jack Huntress, back in 2019, and I immediately fell in love with the concept of what Jack was building. Jack is trying to solve a problem for homeowners that, quite frankly, many businesses have tried and failed or are certainly not being successful at, which is automating home management. What we're doing in uniquely is we're trying to automate home management by working with the businesses that serve the homeowner in doing it in a way that is not just adding value to the business itself but at the end of the day, driving engagement with the homeowner. What that requires is it has to be trusted, private, reliable and engaging so that the consumer will ultimately use it. At the same time, businesses will see value in it. This is not an easy problem to solve. It's something that's resonated with me because these are the types of things I’ve done in my career. I’ve been with HomeBinder now for over two years and helping lead the business strategy. [bctt tweet="Automating home management by working with the businesses that serve homeowners does not only add value to the business itself. It also drives engagement with homeowners." via="no"] I should give a shoutout again to Johnna and Kerri Milam of DepthPR. They're the ones that encourage and introduce us. The reason we're here is because a lot of our lenders face the challenge of staying connected with their buyers after closing. I want to get your thoughts on the problem, and then we're going to get into a little bit about how you solve it. Are you seeing this from your perspective? Are people struggling, Pete? Absolutely. David, it's true that I guess I’d say staying connected with the buyer after the loan is closed is an issue. We consistently see that it's not unique to the mortgage industry. More importantly, it's not just about staying connected. It's about staying connected in a way that is supportive to the client so that they want to continue the relationship after the transaction. Quite honestly, we see this throughout various businesses servicing the homeowner. If you think about the insurance industry, for instance, agents tell us all the time that homeowners reach out for two basic reasons. One is to file a claim. The second is to compare rates when they're looking at maybe a renewal. Both are very transactional. Insurance providers, by and large, are now starting to look at ways to be less transactional and thinking more about being supportive of the long-term relationship with their clients in a way that not only benefits the homeowner but can retain that relationship. Coming back to the mortgage industry, we know statistically retention rates are quite low. You alluded to this at the outset. Many of your followers know the stats from Black Knight at 82% of borrowers will work with a different loan servicer for the next transaction. It's incredibly high and we see this as the highest across all the businesses with which we work. At the same time, we believe that because this transaction is so important, it represents a great opportunity to improve that churn rate by engaging differently. What do I mean by that? You've got the opportunity to reimagine the role that a lender plays in borrowers' lives. Technology is available. Increasingly necessary in order to engage the borrowers early to provide them an excellent client experience throughout the loan process. Something quite frankly, borrowers have just come to expect because if you're not doing it, your competitors are, but that approach is largely focused on delivering value up to the point of closing. What gets missed often is that younger first-time homeowners that represent the largest demographic are now overwhelmed with the concept of managing their largest asset. We consistently hear questions and comments from homeowners with things like, “I have an HVAC filter and I need to service it. Where is it and who can help? I didn't realize I needed to sweep my chimney.” [bctt tweet="Technology is increasingly necessary to engage borrowers early. This allows you to provide them with an excellent client experience throughout the loan process." via="no"] The last time when we bought a house, we failed to ask the previous homeowner when was the last time they had the subject tank pumped or a couple of other things. I want to get Alice in the discussion here because I think where you're going with this is really starting to get exciting. Alice? It is interesting because you're right and even as a lender, I want to make sure that house is getting maintained and there's a benefit in it for the lender. What is it that you think a lender can do as a value add? We all love that we can stay connected with the borrower after closing. What do you recommend? We've done several surveys. We work with not only the businesses, but ultimately our homeowners are the end user here. We found that 68%, that's over 2/3 of our new homeowners, are looking for help to manage their home. That can come in various forms. I don't know about you folks, but I’m a fairly organized person and I’ll use spreadsheets to organize things that I need to do, like fall maintenance. I know I’m the outlier. Most people are looking for guidance and help. Ultimately, everyone wants to work with trusted sources. The first thing I would suggest is start with education. Not to pick on Millennials, but this is a demographic of homeowners that value being educated about home management because, as a group, they know less about home management. We probably have personal examples to cite this. I’d say we know some lenders do an excellent job at educating their clients. We've got some that provide things like an ebook that helps homeowners manage their property. What matters here is that the homeowner feels that the business wants them to be successful. In fact, if you're looking at buyers now, they're using technology to manage every other aspect of their life, whether it's health or financial management. We often hear from people that, “I’ve got an app for everything else except my largest asset.” I’d say education is first and delivering communication in a way that engages the borrower to want to take action. What do I mean by that? We keep emails from businesses that say happy birthday or something similar. These are personal, these are nice, but everyone's busy and these reminders don't rise to the level where homeowners want to take action. I’d say that the action could be related to maintenance, preparing them for a weather event, or refinancing. I see some businesses doing a very good job here, but if you can implement actionable communication that is going to benefit long-term that client, you're going to retain those relationships more. Our approach here is we focus on peace of mind and home value. If we can help homeowners and our businesses help homeowners in those two areas, we believe we're educating and providing actionable communication. [bctt tweet="If you can implement actionable communication that will benefit your client for a long time, you can retain those relationships more." via="no"] I like that term, Jack Nunnery, actionable communication. How about that novel concept and then the stickiness that comes up? What are your thoughts on all this? David, I love what I’m hearing because I know you, me, and many of your audience have been the victims of a drip ad campaign from a loan officer who did our house a few years ago. It adds no value. I don't like dripped on and I’m sure your audience doesn't like getting dripped on either. What Pete is bringing to the table is value-add to the first-time home buyer for sure. Obviously, it could add value to someone who's owned multiple homes throughout their life, but Pete was focused on the Millennials. Let's expand that a little bit to include first-time home buyers. I think that whole segment could benefit from HomeBinder, but it leads the realm of the drip ad campaign and takes it to a whole another level. What Pete is trying to create, and this is a watch phrase for everybody that's tuning in to this show, is creating the culture that is a client for life. That's what we're trying to do, and dripping on periodically, we'll never get you there, guys. It's providing value in your communication or marketing campaign to your customers so that they become clients for life. How are you doing that? Talk about that. We talk about fundamental tenants bring peace of mind and home value. What we do is we provide a home management platform. You talked about obviously on the top of the show about what's going on with rates, the market has been hot clearly. With rates on the rise, I saw an interesting stat last week that loan refinance originations are going to expect it through the MBA to decrease by 62% in 2022. When you start to think about a more purchase-focused market, you start to think about your tech stack and what you're implementing, not only in the customer acquisition side. You start to think about what you can do on the customer retention side. What HomeBinder can do to help support that close experience is effectively a digital closing gift.
Important Links
- Peter Paglia
- HomeBinder
- Jack Nunnery
- Justin Demola – Previous Episode
- Mortgage Bankers Association of America
- Finastra Fusion Mortgagebot Solution
- Insellerate
- Lenders One
- The Community Mortgage Lenders of America
- Knowledge Coop
- Mobility MMI
- Modex
- Snapdocs
- Vishal Rana – Previous Episode
- Amy Moses – LinkedIn
- DepthPR
- Ancestry.com
- Pete@HomeBinder.com