A New Era in Mortgage Partnerships

[00:00:00] Fergal McAlinden: Hello again, and thanks for joining us on another edition of MPA TV. I'm Fergal McAlinden, I'm the Managing Editor here at Mortgage Professional America. So, we had big news recently in the mortgage broker space. Rocket Pro is strengthening its commitment to brokers with a slate of new initiatives and offerings designed specifically with them in mind. The company is doubling down on its relationship with mortgage brokers across the US and today we're going to be hearing a little bit more from Rocket about its recent news and what it means for the broker space. So, joining us today without further ado from Rocket Pro, I am very pleased to welcome General Manager Dan Sogorka. Dan, it's great to see you. How's everything with you? 

[00:00:42] Dan Sogorka: Everything's wonderful. Great to see you as well. Thanks for having me on. 

[00:00:45] Fergal McAlinden: Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, before we get into the questions, congrats on Rocket Pro Experience. I was out there in Detroit at the event. Spoke to tons of brokers about it. Great feedback. A lot of cool announcements, which we're going to get into. And just a great reception from everyone who was there. So yeah, how did the event go for you?  

[00:01:02] Dan Sogorka: Thank you so much. We put a lot of work into it. We were very intentional. And it was amazing. It went off without a hitch. So much good feedback. So much love from the broker community. It could not have gone better, in my opinion. So very, very pleased. Glad you had a great time.  

[00:01:21] Fergal McAlinden: Yeah, that's great. And, you know, also my first time in Detroit, Dan. So, I mean, I'm already thinking when's the next time that I'm going to come back. Love the city and everyone who is there.  

[00:01:30] Dan Sogorka: Yeah, it's been it's been amazing resurgence of the city. And every time we're able to bring people in and tell the story of, you know, what Rockets done for the city, they're really blown away. So, a lot of great follow ups on LinkedIn that talk about that. And so, it's always really, it's a real honor to get to do that. 

[00:01:49] Fergal McAlinden: So first of all, on the mortgage broker side, I mean, I have a lot of great conversations with brokers about how they've been working and collaborating with Rocket this year. From your side, tell me about your team, how it's been working with brokers and some of the main ways that you've been collaborating. 

[00:02:03] Dan Sogorka: Yeah, I think we've been working, I would say, intensely with our entire community of partners. And what I've really been focused on recently is like market segmentation and looking at our entire group of partners by basically by size and geography to understand their different needs, because it's such a unique community in that you have two person shops and 1,200 person shops. You have people that have IT departments, and you have people that are, you know, plugging in their own computer, right. And trying to figure things out. So, I think we're in a really unique spot where we're able to serve both those small partners where we do a lot of work for them and enable them to be now almost an enterprise business without having to buy a lot of tools. And then we're a great counterparty for those large partners who are doing a ton of volume, need to know that we're consistently going to be there with price and service and technology. And so, I've really loved getting myself and my team out on the road across the US in all these shops to understand how we can be better and how we can serve them better. And I think we get so much feedback from that that really helps drive both what we need to do as a business, what we need to do from the capital market side, but also our roadmap on technology. And, you know, I think this show, RPX, where we're able to release a bunch of things into the wild, if you will, is kind of the culmination of really a listening tour of being out there and trying to say, hey, we're not just going to do what we think we need to do. We really want to listen and deliver impactful things to you that change the way you do business. And that's been really satisfying to be able to do that. And then to be there in Detroit and have so many people come up to me and just say, I just want to thank you for the work that you've done and I can use this. And it was just like, it was such an amazing 48 hours. 

[00:04:00] Fergal McAlinden: It was really interesting to me because I was interviewing a lot of brokers for our stuff. And my first question at the event was always, what is it about Rocket’s announcements that most excited you, that you're most enthusiastic about. Every time I get a different answer so some would say, it was you know, the Broker Manifesto, Partner Promises, others were talking about brokernearme.com. I know that we're going to get into those now but I want you to just uh maybe share a little bit about those efforts and you know how they demonstrate a shift in the company's approach to broker partnerships. And maybe tell us a little bit as well about what brokers should expect from Rocket Pro looking ahead. 

[00:04:38] Dan Sogorka: Yeah, sure. When I talked about the promises and announced them on stage, I really said a lot of these things are things we already do, right? They're in our DNA. We've always done them, but maybe the perception hasn't been that we do them or we haven't always been clear and consistent about it. And so, this was really about saying, we're going to put all 10 of these things out there for the world to see. And so that... we can be held accountable both for ourselves and to the community that we're actually doing these things, right? And, you know, it's a risk when you do that, but it's the way to actually, you know, get the outcome that you want. Right. And so, I had a great conversation with someone, Tuesday night who said, you know, when I saw that list of things, I thought, oh, this is kind of fluff. They just going to put these 10 things up there and move on. And he's like, and then you tied them into every session. in a way that was kind of palpable and meaningful. And it really made me feel like this isn't fluff. This is, they're really going to use this to drive the way they show up every day. And it was really cool to hear that because we were, you know, being intentional about that. And we are, right? And so it was great to be able to do that and to spend the time, you know, to work through it and write down and say, what are the 10 things that we believe in? Right. And then and then how do we wrap everything else we do through the prism of those 10 things, right? And very similar to what we do at Rocket with the -isms. Right, where, you know, it's like we decide what what's important enough to be an ism and that we should think about it every day when we show up to work, right. It was kind of the same thing with these broker promises. Like who do we want to be out in the community and how high of a standard do we want to set for ourselves, right? To be the best. So, it was really gratifying to do it. 

[00:06:36] Fergal McAlinden: For sure. And interesting as well that you mentioned that it's not, from your point of view, anything new for Rocket, right? It's stuff that's always been out there that you're kind of codifying right now, or you're putting out there for brokers that's always been there. Tell us a little bit more about that and how those promises are kind of dispelling some of the misconceptions that might be out there about Rocket, how it works with brokers and things like that. 

[00:06:58] Dan Sogorka: As a multi-channel lender, it's easy for people to throw stones and create this false narrative that, you know, Rocket's going to steal your customers, right? That's number one. The other thing is, is like, listen, we're a big company. We just bought two big companies. So, I get it why people are nervous around the scale that, you know, Rocket has now. And so, we really wanted to say, you know, this scale is in service of all of our channels. Here's how it can really be beneficial in the broker channel, right. And I talked a lot about, you know, we believe, you know, especially purchase in particular is a hyper local business and that we have community experts on every street around America. And the better we get and the more technology we have, the better service we can provide and the lower cost we can provide, which helps them build businesses in their communities, and relationships in their communities. And I don't know if you listened to Jonathan's session. It was after my session with Varun, Katie and Jonathan did a session where he said, you're going to hear Rocket leaning in to this year really around neighborhoods and how important neighborhood is to the fabric of America. And that just plays exactly into what we're trying to do with local brokers in their own communities, right? Strengthening neighborhoods and bringing people together. So, it's kind of, it just feels so great to be in a place where everything's coming together in a way where we can be kind of vocal around the company we want to be and have the tools and platform to deliver it at the same time. It's just, it's a lot of fun. 

[00:08:49] Fergal McAlinden: Interesting that you mentioned Katie and Jonathan's session too, because that really ties into what you said about Partner Promises and how it's not just words on a page. They both took it back to their favorite promises and things like that. And I thought, well, the team has really done their homework on each of these and they're all really good in as to what the needs of those go. 

[00:09:08] Dan Sogorka: Yeah, I mean, this wasn't just two people who said, well, we got to come up with this list of 10 things. What should it be? Like we spent six months kind of workshopping this throughout the company from, you know, the CEO all the way on down and said, hey, we're going out. We're going to put our name out there on a list, and this is what we're going to hang our hat on. And we all have to be aligned that this is what we're going to deliver on. And so, it really kind of brought the company together in a way as well, right? But the other part about it is, it's about our partners, right? And RPX was a lot about that too, where we said, this isn't about us and how you know, great our executives are and you know let's talk about Rocket, this is about you and your business and how can we help you. And with the Partner Promises it's kind of the same thing like we want you to understand how we think about things and how we're going to be a great counterparty for you. 

[00:10:07] Fergal McAlinden: So, it's interesting to me too is that as part of your conversation with Varun Krishna, the CEO on stage, there was a lot of talk about AI technology and some of the plans to use that to supercharge brokers business. Can you tell me a little bit more about that and some of the ways that Rocket's working with brokers on the AI front? 

[00:10:26] Dan Sogorka: Yeah, sure. So, you mentioned the Varun statement, and we got into it a little bit on that session, which I really enjoyed. But his not coming from mortgage, he saw Rocket as a data and AI play, right? Like almost regardless, you could be in almost any industry, but you've aggregated all this data and you have the ability to really be the best in the world at AI for this particular thing. And then you link that with his kind of concept of like, home ownership is so important. Like, you couldn't work on anything almost more important than that. So, when you have, you know, kind of the data, the ability to stretch the limits of AI and to be kind of leading the pack there, and then to have a mission around help everyone home and to drive prosperity to people. You know, he really aligned the whole company on that, right? And so, what does that mean then? So, really, that means is like, we have, you know, some of the smartest people in the world working on our AI tools to really drive how we can change the way we do everything. And so, what does that mean for our broker partners? Well, you know, they spend a lot of time on technology. They spend a lot of time working on manual processes. They spend a lot of time trying to find the next deal or work with the next real estate agent. And maybe they lost track of someone who they did a deal with two or three years ago, right? So, we can bring these AI tool sets together to both like grow their top of the funnel or their kind of deals that are in the money or things in their neighborhood that they don't know about that they can take advantage of. And then also drive the efficiency in terms of their day-to-day, how they get their work done, right. And then we can also drive it into our day to day of how we manufacture that loan and work with them to do that. And then now we have the whole servicing and recapture with the Mr. Cooper deal closing, ironically, last night. And then we can help them retain their portfolio. So, I talked to a lot of brokers, like, again, this channel is so diverse, which I love, and so many different business models. But like, let's talk about where we are right now in time, right? Where you would say the purchase market's a little bit locked up. Well, a lot of our partners are purchase specialists, right? And they're like, man, I'm really struggling because of this and this. And well, we can help them do refinance, right? And so, they can really expand the business that they can do. And we can help coach them and give them tools to do that. Same thing on the refinance side now, right? We just bought a company called Redfin and now we can help them understand how to be better in the purchase market and really double that, right? So, everything we do around AI is to help them grow their business or make the process better and more efficient. [00:13:24] Fergal McAlinden: All right so, looking ahead, tell me how Rocket envisaged the evolving broker-client relationship. And what role do you think technology and transparency are going to play in empowering brokers both now and over the long term? 

[00:13:39] Dan Sogorka: That's a great question. So, I think we're very, our position is very clear on this. We believe in broker choice, both in terms of who they work with, the tools they work with, what type of business model they want to leverage. And so, for us, it's about how do we enable them with tools they can use or not use, rather than forcing an AI program on them, right? Like, you know, I especially and we as a company, like I would never go out to our brokers and say, hey, we used AI to contact all your clients. And, you know, hopefully they contact you back, right? That's not our approach, right? Our approach is, hey, we developed this phenomenal tool to help you grow your business and maintain your customer base. We'd love to train you and show you how to use it. If you don't want to, no worries, right? That's, you know, again, it's just a fundamental difference and how we approach our partners as, you know, adults and business owners who can make their own choices and should make their own choices versus people that we believe should follow us blindly based on what we say they should do, right? It's just a different approach than a lot of the other ones out there.  

[00:15:08] Fergal McAlinden: Right. Great stuff. Well, I think that everyone who was there in Detroit was really enthusiastic about what Rocket is offering and what's in store. I'm wondering, Dan, just before we wrap things up, if you have a closing message for brokers about how you're working with them, how you hope to work with them in the future, and why they should work with Rocket Pro.  

[00:15:26] Dan Sogorka: Yeah, I mean, I would encourage you to go check out the Broker Manifesto, go check out brokernearme, log into the Rocket Pro portal, start playing with Navigate, start playing with Assist. I mean, I say this jokingly, but it's like, I wish I was a broker sometimes because I'm like, these tools are so cool. Like you could just go out there and, you know, create your whole day. What, you know, sales objections, how to overcome sales objections. Like, I wish when I was in sales, I had these things where I could just literally type in, you know, I'm having this issue, and the engine comes back and says, here's three different things you can say that should be effective, right. And here's the text that you should write or the email that you should write. So, it's a really fun time to be in the business. I think we're coming out of what was a couple of tough years. Again, I've been in this business 25 years, very cyclical. Some years are great and you think you're awesome at what you do and other years are tough and you're like, man, I'm terrible at this. But I think we're coming into what can be a couple of great years and the intersection of technology and tools and the kind of moves we've made at a macro level. I think we're going to really be able to partner with this community in a way that no one's ever done before. And I'm really bullish on the outlook for our broker partners and the broker channel as a whole. 

[00:16:52] Fergal McAlinden: All right. Well, look, that's a great place to leave things today. Dan, thanks for joining us. Great to hear all the new announcements from Rocket. I know that brokers are already really excited about what's in store and the future with the company so yeah, congrats. And I'm sure that we'll talk soon about how things are going. 

[00:17:07] Dan Sogorka: Thanks for coming to Detroit. And thanks for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. 

[00:17:11] Fergal McAlinden: All right. Well, that's just about all we have time for on today's edition of MPA TV. Thanks again to Dan Sogorka and Rocket Pro for joining us today. Thanks to you for watching, and we'll see you next time.