Lykken on Lending

The Mortgage Collaborative University is a valuable educational platform for mortgage professionals who want to improve their skills, knowledge, and career prospects. It offers flexible and comprehensive courses delivered by industry experts focusing on practical applications. The collaboration aspect of MCU creates a community of professionals who can share knowledge and insights, leading to continuous learning and networking opportunities. MCU is definitely worth considering if you’re a mortgage professional looking to improve your skills and stay ahead of the competition. Listen as Stacie Weider of The Mortgage Collaborative discusses the benefits and broad range of courses that cater to the needs of mortgage professionals at different levels of expertise.

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The Mortgage Collaborative University With Stacie Weider Of TMC

In this episode, I’m excited to have Stacie Weider here. She’s with The Mortgage Collaborative and they’ve got some exciting new things that you should know, especially for you TMC members. For those you are considering joining, and even if you’re not a TMC member, this is going to be something you’re going to want to pay attention to because it’s some new education. Stacie, it’s good to have you on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be a guest. What’s the saying? I’m a long-time audience, a first-time guest.

It’s good to have you here and join me as we got my co-host, Marc Helm. Stacie, for those audience that do not know who you are and your journey to where you’re at and what you’re doing, share with us a little bit about your background.

I have been in the mortgage industry for many years. I am the Director of Learning and Development for The Mortgage Collaborative. I am developing and growing our new division, which is TMCU, which I know we’ll talk about a little bit more later. My background is mostly in mortgage. I started in 2002 as a Junior Loan Officer for a large retail bank. I worked my way up over the years to a Loan Officer, a Sales Manager, a Branch Manager, and then an Assistant VP running multiple branches.

Around 2013, I hit that crossroads in my career where I needed to decide if I was going to pursue what I felt was my purpose, which was to go into professional learning and development, or stay on the path that I was on and rise to higher levels within the bank I worked for. I chose to pursue my learning and development career. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last few years. I’ve been blessed to have the opportunity to work with thousands of mortgage professionals and help them bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be through training and coaching.

I love the part of your story. You’ve pursued your passion because too many people get stuck and they’re afraid to do that. I applaud you for that. We’ve got a fellow educator on here, my co-host, Marc.

Stacie, the audience would love to know about what you’ve got on board for TMC and TMCU. It’s fascinating to me because you’re getting an opportunity to grow something from scratch, build it your way, and make sure it serves the purposes you want for the organization. Could you share your thoughts about that with us?

TMC or The Mortgage Collaborative reached out to me in 2022 and presented me with this interesting and wonderful opportunity to bring to life a goal or a dream that they had to develop and provide learning and education for their network, lender members, and preferred partners. They hired me to come in and pretty much build out this dream that they’ve had for a long time to start providing specific training to their member network and then eventually out from there into the greater mortgage industry.

I’ve been here for years building out a foundation for that training. We exist to provide relevant engaging, effective mortgage-specific training and education to our members. Everything that we create is driven by the needs of our lender members and our preferred partners as well. We are at a place where we have four great course offerings, how it created the content, and how it can help mortgage executives and managers in those four key areas.

Part of your story that I like is they came to you and said, “What would you like to teach?” It gets into what your vision is, your mission, and how you execute this. I thought that was unique. Talk about that.

I was on my last interview with them and they asked me what would be the first course that I would create or teach. My answer was, “I don’t know. That depends on what the members tell us.” The key piece of what we created and how our vision will be for future courses is that we create our content based on the business needs of our lender member network.

That’s so good because many people say, “I have a passion for teaching this. I hope you’ll like it.” When it comes to educating and meeting the needs of the members, it’s so important that you go out and talk to them. You did. What are some of the things you heard?

We did a thorough needs analysis of our member network. We also created a lender advisory panel made up of some of the sharpest and most experienced leaders in the mortgage industry within our network. With that needs analysis and a survey of our network, we found the top number one skill that they wanted and needed regarding training and education was effective communication. We thought it was going to be sales that came in second but it was effective communication. That is the very first course that we created and delivered.

Stacie, what intrigued me about what you’re working on is what makes you different than everything that’s out there. There is so much education in our industry. A lot of it is sales-oriented and communications are what they asked about. As we know, communication is all about can’t be a good salesperson unless you’re an effective communicator. That kind of plays into both sides there. What’s going to make you different in the program you outlaid? I love how you’ve laid out your structure initially but what’s going to make you different long-term, how your vision’s going to play into it, and how you’re going to develop your whole curriculum over some time?

I’d like to answer that by starting with where we fit into the mortgage education realm. There are a lot of great options. You have compliance and NMLS training providers who do certification around sales and guidelines. There are tons of stuff on YouTube. There are things that MI companies offer. There’s a lot of great stuff out there. Where we fit in is we operate more like a learning and development division for our network, where we create and deliver content that is truly driven by their business needs.

Instead of creating content that we feel is needed or we feel very strongly needs to be put out into the marketplace, we instead go to our executive board, our lender advisory panel, and the learners within our network and say, “What do you need? What performance improvement training is going to move the needle in your business? How can we help you with that?”

That’s one of the first ways that we’re moving in a different direction. The second piece that makes us a little bit different is the format. We’ve talked about the way we develop the content and the purpose of the content. How we deliver it is based on what our lender member needs to tell us they want. Most importantly, it’s a hybrid method.

I know where you’re going with that but elaborate on the hybrid method.

The desires and needs of learners are always changing. We have almost four different generations of professionals and learners working in the industry. How do you adjust to what they need? After doing extensive research and reading validated studies, we discovered that the hybrid approach is the best method for that. It means it’s a combination of instructor-led virtual training or in-person training and self-paced learning within an online portal.

Our classes are a combination of that. There’s some portion that is instructor-led and a large portion that is something they can do on their own time at their own pace. They can look at it on their mobile phone or tablet. It’s designed to meet the learners where they are and how they want to consume training content versus what’s easiest or best for us.

I was intrigued by your educational background. Can you talk a little bit about your Master’s degree? The people need to understand where you’re coming from with all this.

If you had asked me years ago if I would continue my Bachelor’s degree, I probably would’ve said no way. College was hard enough the first time around but I wanted to solidify and grow my knowledge when it comes to providing the absolute best learning and development and having some more structure around doing a needs analysis, gathering the needs, putting training together, putting in the mechanisms for measurement and all of those pieces. I decided to take the plunge and get my Master’s degree in Instructional Design, which I completed in 2022. Even from day one, the first course helped me be a better trainer, course developer, and partner to the leaders and executives that I’ve worked with.

I like Instructional Design. Put a little more meat on the bone for those of us who may not understand what is all-encompassing within the Instructional Design degree.

David, I didn’t even know they had a degree in that. I’m fascinated by it because too much of education has all been about the knowledge base of the individual who teaches and they teach what they’ve learned. They don’t have a structure to it. That’s why I was fascinated when she mentioned that. It’s wonderful and I wish I’d had that opportunity to experience some of that in education.

The Instructional Design Master’s degree is about teaching a systems approach to creating and designing, learning, and developing in the most effective way possible. Our first course is communications. Some people may label that as a soft skill or a nice to have. There are countless studies and research that show that communication internally and externally within a company is probably one of the most overlooked and undervalued core competencies.

The Mortgage Collaborative University: The Instructional Design Master’s Degree is about teaching a systems approach to creating and designing learning and development in the most effective way possible.

The great part about it is it’s one of the things that doesn’t cost a ton of money to fix. That was validated when we went to our network and said, “What do you need?” What they told us is we need our internal teams to be able to communicate more effectively so we can have less miscommunication, fewer errors, save costs, help more customers, and all those different things. We tie the course content to tangible metrics that can be measured after the fact.

I talk about the communication course again. The different sections of the course are directly related to behaviors we provide a one-page evaluation sheet to the managers of the students who attend the course. After they attend this course, we want to make sure that you get your return on investment and evaluate whether or not you’re seeing these communication skills being applied. We also help them coach their students as well to reinforce those skills. That’s one of the places that we are different. We fit in well with others. We do have a preferred partner in our network who does compliance and NMLS training. They do an amazing job at that. That’s not something that is where our core competencies are.

I’m excited about what you’re going to be doing. One of the things you mentioned is that you’re also going to have courses in leadership. That’s one of Marc’s and my favorite topics. We have a show Lykken on Leadership in addition to this show. Give us some insights into what that course is going to have for content.

Strategic leadership is one of our newer courses. This course is focused on a few key areas. It’s designed for those who are managers of people so managers that have direct reports. The course starts with an assessment of the student’s leadership style and strengths. We help them identify their leadership style. Most leaders shift styles but what’s their primary style? What are their strengths? How can they best apply and adapt their skills and strengths to business and team dynamics, which are always changing?

We then help them focus on evaluating their team. We give them an empirical framework that’s designed to help them analyze and correct gaps between current performance and desired performance. I used to call these my A, B, and C players when I was managing a branch. I had my A players who were meeting or exceeding their goals. I had my B players who were maybe just barely meeting or under-meeting their goals and then C players. I put together a plan on how you can get the C to the B and the B to the A. In simplified terms, that’s what that framework does.

The Mortgage Collaborative University: We give them an empirical framework designed to help them analyze and correct gaps between current and desired performance.

I got a little follow-up. Since you’re an educator and a developer of education programs, I want to ask you a question. The world changed during COVID. We did so much online with Teams, Zoom, and all these other ways to communicate with people. What do you think the future of virtual education can be across the board in many disciplines? I’m a part of a small education think tank. It’s about six of us that get together about once a quarter.

One of the things we talk about is if we are just right around the corner from having virtual classrooms where you don’t have to go across the state or country to attend a university. You can participate and be a student at Harvard University from Hollywood, California. What do you think about the virtual classroom of the future? What do we have to look forward to in the future to engage at what could be, might be, and should be?

The first thing that comes to mind is the technology, ChatGPT, and all of those things. How are they going to impact it? It’s going to continue to evolve more into a virtual setting but I certainly don’t think there will be a time when there isn’t going to be a need for an experienced or professional learning and development expert or trainer to be a part of it because it takes a person with emotion, feelings, and understanding to be able to design these experiences. I see a future where it’s a mix.

What we’re trying to create is moving away from joining a webinar, listening to a teacher, having some interaction, and then doing an assignment and turning it in, maybe reading a book into more of a total immersion of learning experience. Maybe I do attend a quick Zoom webinar with the instructor but then I go into an online portal where I can consume the content in a way that works best for me. Maybe I want to read it, watch a video on it, or interact with someone else to help me understand it.

I see that the future of learning and development is it’s going to be a mix of different things but the whole experience is going to be incredibly important because there’s so much information being thrown at us daily. The previous ways of training and learning the way that we’ve had in the past aren’t as effective, especially in Generation Z. It’s harder for them to sit down and consume a lot of information at one time. It’s got to be an experience.

I agree. It has to be an experience. When you experience something, it opens up new parts of your brain cells. I’m encouraged by your whole approach. You’re open-minded. First of all, you’re listening to your customers and those who have needs, and you’re designing the system around it. Kudos to you for that. You’re also applying the various learning styles to this.

That is one of the things that are so important, especially when we get hopefully, farther away from what has been set in classroom traditional education models. Those are flawed and failing. I am excited about what you’re going to be doing there. You’re getting this off the ground. For someone signing up for this, what are they going to get? What will they experience?

What does the learner experience? What does the executive or manager who purchased the course experience? One of the first things is to make sure that whatever course content applies to whatever they’re trying to solve. Training is often thrown at problems as a catch-all type solution. It only works in certain scenarios where there is a knowledge or a skills gap. That’s where our training focuses. The leadership, communication, and business development courses that we have created are meant to solve very specific performance and behavioral issues or gaps for our learners.

Communication course, we’ve pretty much already talked about but what students will experience is when they attend the course, it will be a hybrid method where they have an online instructor-led welcome webinar with me. We do an overview of the course, get to know a little bit about each other, and set expectations. From there, they go into our TMCU customized learning portal where they will access the content, watch videos, interact with the content, and complete assignments that apply to what they do every day.

For example, in the communication course, one of the exercises that they do is pick 3 of their coworkers, typically, 1 of them is their manager, and they will try to determine what their communication styles are. They’ve already done the reading and assessment on this but they take what they’ve learned and they’re going to apply it to what they’re doing that day. They try to guess those, come back, turn the assignment in, go back, and meet with them to discover where they are correct. It’s a wonderful process and it helps them communicate more. There are many assignments like that within the courses.

This is encouraging what you’re developing there at TMC. What’s the level of interest that you’ve experienced thus far?

We have been collecting data from all of our students. Our first two courses, before we even launched them, we did pilot classes with our lender member network. We had some of our executives from our lender advisory panel take the class and get their feedback. From there, we make changes based on their thoughtful feedback.

Our evaluations have been overwhelmingly positive but we’re always evolving and making it better. I don’t like to say that we have evergreen content. It’s content that you create once and put up on the shelf. We have evergreen topics and we’re always looking to improve. We are just getting started and excited for the future. I’d love to tell you all about each one of the classes. We have that information for the audience on our website.

Where can they go to learn more about each one of these classes?

They can go to www.MortgageCollaborative.com/TMCU.

Do you give a certification of completion? With someone taking your courses, what can they expect to get afterward?

After they’ve completed the course, which includes the assignments, exercises, and attending the live classes, they do get a TMCU Completion Certificate.

Stacie, thank you so much for joining us here and sharing this exciting news and the latest developments at The Mortgage Collaborative. We’re members of The Mortgage Collaborative. We’re very proud of our relationship and membership. I expect this to take off. Marc, any final thoughts that you want to share?

It’s fascinating and you’re going to do an outstanding job of continuing to build and grow the curriculum. It’s going to be exciting to see what happens for you and what the future holds for you. I’m excited for you. I’d love to get future reports on how things are going.

Stacie, do come back and give us updates on what you’re doing, especially as you develop the curriculum and courses. Thank you, Stacie, for being with us here.

Thank you so much for having me and for the opportunity to share a little bit more about what we’re doing at TMCU.

You bet. It’s good to have an audience who’s been following for a long time and a first-time guest. This won’t be the last time we’ll have you on. You’ll be back. I can tell you that for sure. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Stacie.

Thanks, Marc.

Important Links

• Mortgage Collaborative
• TMCU