Industry executive shares the secrets on how to get edge over highly-resourced companies
Large mortgage companies continue to dominate the headlines in the industry. The biggest companies continue to expand their footprint and are prepared to expand their client base at a time when mortgage rates are falling.
For the mortgage broker who is either working on their own or in a small brokerage, the question becomes how to compete with the megalenders. One industry executive said it still comes down to outworking the competition.
Kevin Peranio (pictured top), chief lending officer at Paramount Residential Mortgage Group (PRMG), recently spoke on the topic at the NAMMBA Connect event in Orlando.
“You talk about hard work, but I think you hear that old adage, work smarter, not harder,” Peranio said. “I hate that. I've always said, work smarter and harder. If you look at where you want to go versus your competition. If you're trying to be self-reflective and realize that not everyone can be the number one, but you can do better than yourself.
“I've always liked individual sports, you know, like triathlon. You just try to be better than yourself the last time, and that's all you need to compare to. If you want to get better, you have to be smart and work hard.”
Being obsessed
Peranio said the challenge for smaller brokers and lenders is that you’re trying to compete against companies with more employees, more technology, and more resources.
“Look at some of the consumer direct companies,” he said. “They have thousands of agents that sit there and just hammer phone calls all day. We're being outworked right there. They've got great tech, great marketing leads are flying in, and they’re hammering call after call after call. It’s hard to compete against that, but that is the competition we are being outworked by.”
Because those companies have the advantage of scale, Peranio said it comes down to finding the things you do well and working as hard as you can to perfect them. In fact, he said the difference in being incredibly successful is having a level of obsession about what you are doing.
“When you find a niche, or you find something that works, that's smart, and then do more of it,” Peranio said. “Then the thing I think is missing from a lot of people is that they're not obsessed with this business. I've got four kids. They say, 'I want to be a professional soccer player.' I hope they are, but they're not obsessed with soccer.
“My kids always love playing when we're in practice or when we're at a soccer game. But when you're not at work, are you always working? Are you obsessed with this business? Are you obsessed with how you serve a community? Are you obsessed with the efforts that you put in?”
The mindset of improving by 1% every day enables mortgage professionals to continually take steps forward. Peranio said, as long as that’s happening, you are winning.
“Are you obsessing over your failures to make them better the next time, to work smarter and compound the hard work on top of it?” he said. “That's how you get better compared to yourself every day. As long as you get better every day at what you do, then you will win.”
Communication is key
Part of serving your community is having effective communication throughout the mortgage process. Peranio said PRMG sends out a midpoint survey, which allows them to check in on the process before the loan is closed.
When the results fall short, it is almost always due to a communication gap.
“You use those because you're helping promote the reputation of your originators or your realtors, who are working on the deal,” he said. “Those surveys are just organic content and comments coming straight from the client. We find that anything that's less than five stars, it's almost always a communication breakdown.
“I mean, 998 times out of 1,000 it's like, ‘My loan officer was hard to get a hold of, and they were dodging me at the end.’ I get that you don't want to tell the listing agent this borrower has (bad) credit, it’s just a miracle that we’re going to get this thing done. But I can't tell you, because of the borrower privacy laws, and then the listing agent wants to blast you.”
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By keeping the lines of communication open during the process instead of after, it gives you a chance to make something right before the loan is funded, which could allow you to avoid a negative online review.
“That midpoint check is an outlet for someone that wants to blast you after you fund on Google, which is there forever,” Peranio said. “As opposed to your own technology that helps promote reputations when they're good and allows you to see the insights when they're bad. That is our way of secret shopping. It is hard to be introspective and self-reflective, especially if you know you're doing a bad job.”
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