Todd Duncan, bestselling author and sales entrepreneur, has 5 million students worldwide who he has mentored and taught in the real estate, mortgage banking, and financial services areas. In this interview, Todd discusses uncovering your “why” so you can make wiser choices on your journey to becoming a top producer. We talk about business planning and “preparing for being your best, no matter what the market is,” and how failure is the necessary flip side of success.
Todd believes in the importance of accountability, establishing emotional connections and relationships vs. transactional ones, and that everything can be improved. His mantra is trust yourself, your relationships, your faith, and your future. When you do that, you set in motion a university of possibilities.
Thanks for listening to Mortgage Connects, an MGIC podcast. If you have questions, comments, or want to get involved, send an email to mortgageconnects@mgic.com.
Looking for even more expert insights? Check out our mortgage industry content portal, Mortgage Connects knowledge hub. Subscribe today so you don't miss out on the latest! Subscribe
Todd Duncan, bestselling author and sales entrepreneur, has 5 million students worldwide who he has mentored and taught in the real estate, mortgage banking, and financial services areas. In this interview, Todd discusses uncovering your “why” so you can make wiser choices on your journey to becoming a top producer. We talk about business planning and “preparing for being your best, no matter what the market is,” and how failure is the necessary flip side of success.
Todd believes in the importance of accountability, establishing emotional connections and relationships vs. transactional ones, and that everything can be improved. His mantra is trust yourself, your relationships, your faith, and your future. When you do that, you set in motion a university of possibilities.
Thanks for listening to Mortgage Connects, an MGIC podcast. If you have questions, comments, or want to get involved, send an email to mortgageconnects@mgic.com.
Looking for even more expert insights? Check out our mortgage industry content portal, Mortgage Connects knowledge hub. Subscribe today so you don't miss out on the latest! Subscribe
Stephanie:
Welcome to market to connects by MGIC bringing you the latest insights from top mortgage professionals around the industry. I'm your host, Stephanie Budnik on today's episode. I'm so excited. We have Todd Duncan, bestselling author and sales entrepreneur. Todd is a sales entrepreneur with over 5 million students around the globe that he has mentored and taught in the real estate mortgage banking and financial services areas. And his first career move. He became a real estate broker and a licensed laundry originator, successfully negotiating and financing over 5,000 real estate transactions in 12 years, he then took that success and launched the high trust company with a vision of transforming how sales professionals build high performing real estate and mortgage practices. Todd has spent his life teaching and equipped in professionals with the power of high trust as the key catalyst in achieving their personal and professional dreams. As the leading authority and trust, he helps business professionals accelerate emotional connection with clients, increasing conversations and setting the client up for lifetime of loyalty. Todd is a highly sought after game-changing speaker presenting solutions on real life challenges that business professionals face daily, giving them the vision of competence and a plan to get out of business and life. His mantra is trust yourself, your relationships, your faith, and your future. When you do that, you set in motion, a university of possibilities. Hi Todd, thank you so much for coming on today.
Todd:
Stephanie, it's great to be with you. Good to see you. And can't wait to hang out with the MGIC tribe and have a great combo.
Stephanie:
Yes, I'm so excited. And I'm really excited about this topic. I know business planning is a big thing that a lot of people look to do, and especially at this time of the year, you know, people set their minds to really thinking about it. So I'm excited to dive in.
Todd:
Yea. Amen.
Stephanie:
So I know I've been listening a lot to what you're having to say on social, and you've talked a lot about mindset, attitude, the importance of knowing your why. So as we head into the end of the year here, what is your message on giving this uncertainty in the market that we have? How ever Fastly things are changing? What kind of advice can you offer?
Todd:
Yeah, I the first thing I would say is I think attitude is, is everything. You know, I read a book early in my career, it was called the optimism mindset. And it was by a guy that was a doctor of psychology. And he was talking about, what is your, what is your bent in life? Do you tend to see things optimistically or pessimistically? And one of the things that he said is that optimistic people, outperform pessimistic people by like 42% minimum, sometimes all the way up to hundreds of percent. And so I want to say to everybody that no matter what we find ourselves experiencing, no matter whether the market is, is harder, easy, whether the rates are high or low, whether you know, growth is positive or negative whether unemployment is high or low, it doesn't really matter what matters is how you perform in whatever market you're in. And so preparing for being your best, no matter what market is, one of the key skillsets that I think people need to be thinking about as they head into the end of the year, when we talk about making wise choices and decisions, and the idea that those should be aligned with what is your purpose or what is your why? I think a lot of people are a little bit misled on discovering their why. And so I was doing something a month ago and I was doing some research and I typed in, you know, how to discover your why or how to know your why. And there was like 432 million responses, just so I knew that people are interested in this, but you know, I think a lot of people that teach why kind of stopped short and, and, and I think what, what we've done is we've discovered not only the methodology of why. So the simple, why should you know, why or what your purpose, is it helps you make really great decisions and it acts as like a self-organizing filter. And so when you're able to align your outside world with your inside world and your purpose has lived out through what you do each and every day, you have a more consistent life flow and business flow. And and it unlocks the second element, which is where most people stop talking. And that's the biology of why and the biology of why is what's the psychological impact of your outside world and your inside world being lined up. And there's actually four happy hormones that people get when they start to align their outside world, which is their business and their life with what's going on in the inside. What really is important to them. The first thing they do is when their outside world lines up with their inside world, their why they get constant hits of dopamine and dopamine is the feel-good hormone. And so when you begin to understand that you can feel better and you feel good when you do things that are aligned with what you feel your purpose is, then you will even achieve more because people that experienced success can roll into the next success endeavor much easier than those who start and stop. So dopamine is one of the, the, the the happy hormones that you get. The second one is serotonin and serotonin is a mood regulator. People that end up all day long doing what they don't like to do, or that don't experience happiness or joy. Don't have a positive attitude. It's that simple. And so what serotonin does is it regulates your mood. And so if there's an alignment between what you do on the outside every day as a mortgage professional, every day as a real estate agent, when that business piece is lined up with this insight piece, then you will feel more optimistic. And when you're more optimistic, you sell more, you do more, you're more joyful in how you do it. And so that's an important one. The third hormone that people get is they get oxytocin, which is called the love. And while it applies to a relationship and chemistry and even familial things like a new mother with a young son or daughter breastfeeding, things like that, it has another element, which is a promotes trust and empathy. So that's the relationship piece. And the big skill set that mortgage and real estate people need to have is connection. Our world is so fragmented right now that if you're not connecting with trust and empathy you don't have a going on and it's just going to be harder. So we got to align those things up, and then you get more of that. And the faster that a mortgage or real estate professional can transfer trust and empathy to a potential client or partner, the better off we're going to be. And then the last one is endorphins and endorphins is the the it's the reward system for the body. And when we do things that we love doing that, that we do well that we feel good about, then we get this constant flooding of endorphins, which all of this does all four of these hormones set the person up that knows his or her, why to experience success faster, quicker at higher levels, and have more joy, happiness, and gratitude in the experience. And so it's, it's just powerful to know that it doesn't happen overnight. Stephanie people got to really go like, what's important about success to me. Like when I wake up every day, why am I doing what I'm doing? And one guy took about a year to do this. And he said, my purpose, my why is to be an inspiration to my family, my friends and my team, and that order, I want to be an inspiration to my family, to my friends and to my team. And we just interviewed him and had him on sales mastery. And he's just a, he's a balanced, guy's a rockstar. Originator is that rock star manager. And every day he wakes up and that's his filter. So we get to make wiser choices when we know our why, and it doesn't have to be long-winded, it can minus why my, why is simply I wake up or VBA. I wake up every day to make a difference. That's it. I, I want to make a difference in my life. I want to be my best version of me. I want to make a difference in my wife's life. Deb's because if I'm good and she's good, then we're good. Right? And then I want to make a difference in my son's lives. And if they're good, we're good. And if, and if they're not good, we're good. And then, and then I want to make a difference in the world, you know, and the global impact that we get to have the honor to have. And so I, you know, in the middle of, of tough times, making a difference motivates me in the, in the middle of good times, making the difference motivates me when we have to make pivotal decisions, you know, as, as as we all have had to do over the last 20 months, you know, my, our purpose as a company, you know, illuminates those decisions. And it is in my, in my opinion, it is probably number one, self accountability and motivational tool on the planet when people know why they're doing what they're doing,
Stephanie:
I've love that. I absolutely love that I have changed careers in my life and my why really hasn't changed. And it it's authentically making a difference every day and, and how that looks and what that is, is so different. But you are like spot on when you talk about all of the pieces that come with that and the building of relationships and just how successful that makes you, you know, I thought I wanted to be teacher my whole life. And then I found out that that wasn't what I wanted to do, but it didn't change my passion or it didn't change what I had to do every day to get there. And so I love that. And I think that that is really, really important. Both professionally and personally,
Todd:
Well, the two come together, right? They, they have, if it's not right, if it's not right in my life, it's not going to be right in my business. If it's not right off the job, it's not going to be right on the job. And if the, on the job is crushing me, then the off the job gets compromised. And so there's no downside to just develop this laser clarity on how to have your best life on or off the job. And it is knowing your why.
Stephanie:
Yeah and just that you can change and being open to doing that change because yeah, you're right. That I was not a positive person when I thought I was doing what I loved, but it didn't change why I was doing it. So I love that. Love it. You were talking about things in earlier in your career, and I know in previous conversations you had said that you had kind of an epiphany in your mortgage career early on. Can you tell us a little bit about what that was and why it's so important for mortgage professionals today?
Todd:
I think the world right now is, is starving for what I'm about to say. And so the reason why it was so powerful when I first got into the mortgage business is because it is as powerful today. And it was as powerful 30 years before I did my first mountain. You know, when I was a teenager and there were a young kid and maybe, maybe even not even in my, maybe my parents weren't even together yet. I got to do the math real quick on that. But I graduated from college when I was 23 and, and I got into the mortgage business because my parents friends had a real estate company that owned a mortgage company. So I didn't really have a design. I got a degree in finance and marketing went to work for a large real estate owned mortgage company. And I had 26 real estate offices to call on. And that's what I was told that it start here and go there and just do that. Right. And that's old school, you know, no, no technology yet credit reports took five days. You know, fax machines hadn't been invented yet in the biggest computer screen you could get was about five inches by five inches and then had for writing. But you know, what was the same then as is now is people buy real estate people, finance real estate, and they do business with people they trust. And so I get into the business and I'm probably a month in, and this whole idea of calling on 26 real estate offices got old really really quickly. And so I called a friend of mine whose dad owned a real estate company. I said, can I just come by and hang out this afternoon and just kind of watch what goes on? He said, sure. So I went by and I sat in this office and I was there for about three hours and I counted 21 people that came through the front or title reps, mortgage loan officers, everybody looking for business, right. And this guy comes out at the end and he's about my height, six, five. And he's dressed in this beautiful blue suit. And he's got a nice black leather folio. He comes in with this like really clear charismatic, kind of purposeful reason for being there. He had an appointment with one of the top producing real estate agents for that brokerage. And and I was amazed at that because I hadn't done that on any of my calls. Right. I was just in a *sound effects* . And and he disappeared for 45 minutes. And he then came out with the real estate agent and they exchanged a handshake and he looked at her and he said, I look forward to a long and mutually profitable relationship. That was the first time I had heard the word relationship in mortgage. And so I called him just on, on a, on a whim. And and he took my call and I said, I saw you today at era lo lot of Wiki. And, and I need some help, man. You look like, you know what you're doing? I have no clue what I'm doing. And I'm just wondering if I could buy you lunch. And he said, absolutely, I'd love to meet with you. And so I was, first of all, astounded that here I am, a brand new loan officer, and this guy's 10 years older than me. And he's going to meet with me. I later found out the reason he wanted to meet with me is because somebody met with him, you know, 10 years earlier. And it was like, right. People that people that receive mentoring at some point want to mentor. And I was in the right place at the right time with him. And so I remember at lunch very clearly. He said before you go any further in your career, you need to make a decision. And I said, okay, what's the decision. And he said, you need to decide if you want to pursue transactions, or if you want to pursue relationships. And while that may sound like an easy decision for all of us right now hearing it, I was somewhat confused by it because I was brand new. And, and I looked confused and he looked at me and he said, transactions will make you a living, relationships will make you a fortune. And I heard that and I'm thinking, wow. And he said, it's not just the money. Relationships will create the transactions. Transactions will not guarantee the relationships. And so that was my, like my introduction to the idea that you don't need to be everything to everyone. You don't need to serve, you know, dozens and dozens and you know, an office with a hundred real estate agents, or you don't need to, you don't need to try to get a little bit from everybody. You need to get out a lot from the right bodies. And it was just like, wow, this stuff is just great. And he said, you know, if you, you, if you add more value, too few, many will want you, but if you added value to many, few will need you, I'm calling whoa, I got to write this down. So I chose relationships and he taught me everything about sales and marketing and how to, how to get the appointments like he was getting. And Stephanie, 12 years later, we had funded almost 6,000 transactions. And I had for my entire 12 year career doing loans, I had 13 realtors. That's crazy. Yeah. And then, and then he said, and, and don't forget that when you meet with a borrower, you need to understand it's not just a transaction. That is also a relationship. And he said, most people are like one and done because they're transaction focused. And he said, you got to understand that somebody that buys their first home is going to probably buy one or two or three more. And they're probably going to need three or four or five loans. And so decide in that borrower relationship, who are the ones that you want to build relationship when, and who are the ones that end up, you know, like access to a lot of people. And I did, I did a deal for a guy that his friend ran a bank and the bank didn't do mortgages. So they had 3000 depositors. So I made that whole thing work, and I got to be the lender for the bank. And then I became the lender for a hospital. And then I became a lender for a California airline pilots association and just, it was just relationship. And there's people today that I did loans for when I came out of college that I still talk to today. And that's what, 30, 35 years later. It's crazy.
Stephanie:
That's incredible. And that's just so important. I mean, we talk about that all the time. Only talk about what matters to people and relationships. And I talk about that a lot too, in some of the trainings that we do is just that just because it's one borrower, like it's a life changing experience. And so being that powerful part and in a relationship piece to them, you know, word of mouth is everything.
Todd:
Do you know that what you just said is like gold. There's studies right now that we wrote about in our book, five stars and word of mouth is 66% more effective than any other type of marketing. And word of mouth is only half as expensive to acquire as traditional direct marketing. And I think though, people need to understand is that the relationship piece, and this is important is the conversion piece. If I say, Stephanie, I know that you need a mortgage. And I just got to tell you, save your time. Don't talk to any of the lenders. I got this gal. She is amazing. You can trust her. And I highly recommend her. If that stuff is happening, then conversion is going sky high. And I think mortgage and real estate people need to understand. It's not, it's not about how many people you talk to. It is about who says yes, and yes, it's not a sales tactic. Yes. As a relationship, if they trust you, they'll say yes, if they don't trust you they'll shop.
Stephanie:
Right, that's all you hear about us, how everyone shops and how you get like five or six quotes and right. You know, before you even meet with anybody. And so that relationship piece, if you don't have it, you're not even worth calling back.
Todd:
Yeah. I was talking with somebody recently and he was saying, you know, most people don't really even still today know how to handle that initial rate question. And I said, so how do you handle it? And he says, any time somebody asks me, what are your interest rates on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He says, it all depends on when you want to be financially free and when you want to retire. And it's like, that's a question that all of a sudden stops people in their tracks and goes, wow, cause everybody else is going to 30 or fixed blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I was talking with somebody in Texas and he goes I kind of have fun with people when they ask me what my interest rate is. I said, it all depends on your down payment and that causes confusion. And so they usually go, what do you mean? And he goes like, if you put a hundred percent down, your rate is zero. And he has that Texas, you know, at Texas. And he has fun with it, but yeah, we got it. We got to understand relationships that are high trust will pay more and they won't shop you.
Stephanie:
Absolutely.
Todd:
Yeah. Yeah.
Stephanie:
You're speaking of high trust and I know that you have the high trust selling system and you have mentioned in there you have a secret sauce within your high trust interview. And I know that there's even been quotes saying that this is like the holy grail of selling. So I know we've talked about some pretty powerful things, so I'm excited to hear this, but can you provide us a little bit of an additional insight on what that is and what that means for mortgage and real estate professionals implementing it?
Todd:
Yeah. Let me see if I can jump into this. Cause it's a, it's a topic that we can't fully discuss, but I can tell you three things right on right out of the gates. Most people, they don't understand the high trust interview talk themselves out of a sale. And so there's this concept that we teach called conversational productivity. And what conversational productivity means is that the more you talk, the less likely you are to get a yes. And so it's like take the 80 20 principle, apply it to a conversation. And instead of using a hundred words, you know, use only 80, but even just with 20 words, less, the conversion rate at 80 out of a hundred words is 17%. If we take that all the way down to reversing it. So it's not the 80 20, it's now the 2080. I'm not going to ask 10 questions. I'm going to ask two, but the two questions are going to be super powerful. Then what ends up happening is my conversion rate goes to 76%. So the high level, what is the high trust interview? It's not selling, it's not talking. It's very few profound questions that allow an engagement of trust to occur so that you can then go on to the rest of the conversation and to take it even deeper than that. We take the 80 20 rule. We take the conversation or productivity rule, and then we go, let's spend 80% of whatever we converse about on emotional connection. And then let's spend 20% on economic recommendation. The industry has that backward. So they spend 80% of their time on economic education and recommendation, but only 20% of their time on the relationship piece, which is why conversion is so low. And so like, you know, I could, I could I could, I could talk for five days on this, Stephanie there there's, there's, there's this need for, for mortgage and real estate professionals to realize that we, we can literally talk ourselves out of the sale. And the more that we tell and the less that we ask, the less we can learn, which means the less we can solve. So we're telling people today, what is the high trust interview is asking questions that the competition doesn't ask, it's learning needs that the competition doesn't know, and it's providing solutions that the competent competition can solve. And you do that by asking really, really deep questions. A deep question would be like, tell me as a real estate professional, what are you most passionate about? Okay. Tell me as a first time home buyer, what are your greatest fears and how can I come alongside you to make them go away? Or if I'm talking, if I'm a branch manager, I'm talking to my LO and I'm doing year-end planning, you know, a high trust question would be where do you see your business being in the next three years? And why do you want to be there? That question, you know? And, and so we have six categories of questions, introduction, questions, present questions, future questions, fear-based questions, awareness questions, and then competition elimination questions. And what I'll do for the MDIC tribe is we'll we'll provide a download for them. If they want to go to Todd dunkin.com and just hit the resource tab, free tools, they can download a 20 page white paper called talk less, sell more, talk, less, sell more. And it's a free gift. There's no, no strings attached, and we can get that out to your tribe. And if they, I I'll tell you right now, anybody that goes through that 20 page document, you know, change the way you connect with people for the rest of your life. It's it's that game changing. So that that'd be one way that I don't have to take hours to answer the question. We'll just give you guys a tool that you find you'll find beneficial.
Stephanie:
That is amazing. I am sure our listeners will definitely enjoy that. And I know that I will be tuning it as well. It's just about doing things that matter to people. You know, you sell them something they don't need. They're not going to come back to you.
Todd:
Well, it's like you have to stop thinking. We sell anything. I mean, you know, if anything, we're a guide, we give people hope security and peace of mind, and how much will people pay for hope security and peace of mind more than they would if that were not part of the conversation, because it's just about payment and just about rate, you're going to lose. Somebody is always better. Somebody is always cheaper. Somebody always promises something differently. So, and the most important reason for this, Stephanie is like, if I do you well as a borrower and that referral that I just gave you is going to take care of you for the next 30 years of your homeownership life. What am I doing? I'm building in residual income. And the top mortgage professionals realize that I've got to build residual income, not just earned income. And the residual income comes from your buyer, tribe, borrower tribe. If you're an agent, your seller tribe, whatever. And that's where most of the business has to come from. So that's why relationship matters.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Being an advisor versus something else where you're offering that value. You're talking about the top, you know, the top originators in what they do. And you've coached thousands of people in the industry. I know that there's like a 1% like elite group. What are some of the decisions that they make every day? And for anybody wishing to be more productive that they could emulate and be more like,
Todd:
And that was a key question right there. Cause usually when we talk about the top 1% people start to freak out because they don't think that they're the top 1%. Well, I, I always like to tell people, you know, the top 1% was not the top 1% either when they got into business. And it doesn't matter to me, if anybody is, is wanting to be in the top 1% or not, what matters is what can we learn from those people? So that whatever level of volume we want to be at, you know, based on our lifestyle goals and desires and things like that, what can we learn from those people? And so, you know, when we look at our elite group, which is 24, you know, high performance, one percenters a couple of things come to mind. The first thing that I would say Stephanie, is that I think everybody that is a top producer has high standards. And, and I think what that means is high standards about work ethic, high standards, about efficiency, high standards, about who they say yes to and who they say no to who do they do business with? I think the, the idea of, of quality and convert ability and, you know, closing, I mean high standards, what's a high standard. Well, I, I don't put a loan into processing of, it's not going to close. You know, I don't, I don't, I don't put the burden on doing a bad job on loan files so that my team can pick up the pieces and put it together. They have high standards. They say no, when they need to say no. And they say yes, when they want to say yes, and there's a real powerful move here that they have mastered the art of saying no to the things that either a are below what their hourly rate is, that can be better delegated. And they have mastered saying no to the activities and the people that are time Roberts. And that's a very straightforward answer to what do high standards look like? So their conversion rate from buyer conversations to loan submitted is usually around 60 or 70%. And their pull through rate from a loan that goes into processing. That's a true triggered, you know, loan credit and everything. 98, 90 9% of those close. And the times they don't close it's because the borrower changes a direction. Not because they can't fund the loan. So that's, you know, that's one of the pieces, I think the other piece, and this is where I really see the coaching breakthroughs. When we look at our coaching members, the, the, the big thing is they have a predictable routine. They don't let the day become a kaleidoscope of urgency and fires and things like that. They show up at a start time. They have a methodology for the day. They have mastered the two or three blocks of time, borrower conversations, partner conversations team oversight and leadership for great customer service experiences. Those are the three things that top 1% do. And they do them every day. It's, it's like a routine. And if you think about any profession that you think about doctors, you think about lawyers, you think about accountants, you know, they work by a point and their day is scheduled with appointment, appointment, appointment, and then break and then appointment appointment appointment. So they have predictable routines, which requires predictable relationships. And I guess the last thing and this points a little bit back to that downloadable document is they have mastered the buying process. They know how to have a high trust dialogue, so that fears are assuaged. Tension is removed, attraction, occurs, bonding, emotionally happens. And as a result of that, that's why their conversion rate is so high. So those are three things immediately. And and they challenge, they challenge how long it actually takes to get things done. They're constantly looking at how can we improve? How can we take this from 30 minutes to 25, 25 to 20? They're always looking for that edge in terms of the minutes, because the minutes over a day or a week at up
Stephanie:
Yeah. And all the time that they have to dedicate, like if you, you can do an X amount of time and then you have that work-life balance. That's another big piece for people.
Todd:
It's a belief system too. I think Stephanie people need to know that, like we, in coaching, we have one outcome that we want to want to help our coaching members achieve. And that is how many hours are they working and how much money are they making? And it's because of value that they provide. It's not because money is the driving force, but if you're going to give an hour of your life and your straight commission, do you want to earn a hundred dollars or do you want to earn a thousand dollars? The top 1% want to earn a thousand or more? And the rest haven't figured out yet that, Hey, my hourly rate adders. Because if, if I am, if, if I am giving lifeblood to the business and I run it the right way, I should be watching my income go up because my value is going up to the relationships I serve.
Stephanie:
I remember you saying part of that, I know we were recently a part of your irrefutable event and that was awesome. And you had spoken about that in your what's your hourly rate. Can you let our listeners in a little bit on what those five principles of high-performing mortgage and real estate practices are?
Todd:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think the first thing I would say is principles once you know, the principles there's a lot of methods to achieve them, but principles don't change. So principle number one is everything can be improved. And so top producers and people that want to become top producers are looking at the few things that they can create the greatest improvements on that have the greatest impact. So that's number one. The second principle is success can only be built on failure. So if we understand principle number one, that everything can be improved. That means we have to do different things and new things, and that's going to increase the odds of failing and what we need to know. And what we need to model is that every great endeavor, every great innovation, every great breakthrough requires failure to be part of the equation. It's not negative. It is the other side of success set differently. Success is not possible without failure. And if you want to try to succeed at a higher level of succeeding is not possible without failure and the faster you fail. And the more you learn from failure, the faster you can become successful. So everybody has to have a healthy attitude towards failure. Those two things go hand in hand principle number three is emotional connection, deepens relationship and accelerates trust. A lot of people need to understand, it's not how many people you talked to. It's how many people say yes. And a lot of people need to figure that out. That if I'm just talking about the economics, I'm going to have low conversion. If I'm talking about the emotional relationship and the connection and the deep desire of, of relationship, then people are going to say yes. And the beautiful thing is like a loan rep in business planning could say, I'm going to talk to four borrowers a day. And if I do a good job in one goes to processing and three don't than if I have 90% of those loans fund, then I'm going to close about 180 loans a year. If I want to double my business, I don't want to talk to eight people. I would still want to talk to four, but I want to get to, to say yes. So the way we do that is I'm not going to get more hours. I'm just going to get more out of the hours. And so emotional connection is the way you get people to say, yes, we're quickly. And we're consistently. So that's powerful. The fourth principle is, and this is huge. Competence leads to confidence, confidence leads to consistency, and you cannot have compounding without consistency. And so when we look at getting good, okay, and then moving from good to great, the, the, the best producers, real estate and lending and business anywhere, they get competent at a few skillsets that they have been gifted at that are natural skillsets. And they take those to level 10 effectiveness, and then the world changes. And then the fifth principle is accountability is more important than action. You know, you can wake up and just go out and try to be successful. But the most successful people have accountability and accountability is a very positive word, every great performer in any discipline, anywhere in the world has mentors and coaches and, you know, top athletes, top musicians, top actors, top singers, you know, everybody's got coaches. And when you think about accountability, accountability is actually the bridge between a dream and a dream achieved. And if we don't have accountability and we don't marry that to our why, which is what we started our podcast off with, then we're going to just go left and right, and, and kind of be thrown to the left right up down, depending on what the market's doing. And so people that really want to do well thrive on having somebody help them with accountability. And like, you know, every coaching call ends with, what will you do between now and in two weeks based on this conversation. And there's an action plan and what are we going to do? What are we going to do? And you don't have to have a coach to have accountability. If you know your, why you've got accountability, because it's a filter for you, right? And if your spouse knows your why, then you have some accountability. If your branch manager knows your, why you have some accountability, and if you need a coach, a coach can give you some accountability, but all great people have coaches. And I have three, I have a life coach. I have a financial coach and I have a business coach, slow learner. But I don't know.
Stephanie:
I don't think so. I think you've caught up pretty quick. I think it's been good. Oh, that's great. That there's so many powerful things just in this, in this last question that we've covered. And I don't even know where to go first. You know, the
Todd:
Here's where I'll take you. I think where we need to go is if any of those five principles I just laid out or even just the idea of hourly rate and being able to work fewer hours and make more money by providing more value to fewer people, if that excites you, and you want to see what we can do for you, all you have to do is go to our website and go to a free coaching call. It's 30 minutes. There's no strings attached and just have a conversation with a coach. And if at the end you feel like, wow, I had no idea this was possible. Then, you know, let's go for it. And if not, no big deal, but that's where we should start. You know? And you guys have had such a beautiful run as a company for so long helping, you know, helping the industry when this is just a little bit of a, maybe a cherry on top of what you guys already believe at at MGC and the role that you play. And of course, as I've told you before I always feel blessed because when I started the Duncan group, we had a 25 city roadshow with MDIC. And so my first, my first, my first introduction to having a sponsored relationship with a great company. So that's where
Stephanie:
We've loved every minute. So I think that our listeners are in for a lot of great insights and resources. If they tune into that, I know I even heard something this week, you know, they were talking about failure and what's one thing that you failed at this week. And if you couldn't think of something, you're not trying because you know you, and so I was like, that was just like blew my mind. I was like, oh, I feel that a lot of things that are regular basis and being okay with that. So I love it.
Todd:
I did a post if you're not failing, you're failing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you're not, and then Sarah Blakely who founded Spanx, I was just doing some research on her. You know, her dad, every Sunday night at dinner, sat down with the family and she was like 12. And her dad would ask the family. So when did you fail at this week? Every Sunday night, they had a dialogue about what you failed at this week. And she said, that's why I became an entrepreneur, because I love the idea that failure is part of the game.
Stephanie:
You have to fail to succeed. Right. If you're not trying. Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much, Chad, there's so many exciting things here. I I'm even excited to just think about, you know, next step. So I'm sure that there are many, many other people who feel very similar after listening to this episode. So thank you so much.
Todd:
You're welcome. We're here to help and we want people to fall in love with their life and enjoy the process.
Stephanie:
All right. Well, thanks and have a Good one.
Todd:
See you Stephanie, appreciate it.
Stephanie:
Thanks everybody for listening for all of the latest insights, subscribed to mortgage connects on apple, Stitcher, Google podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, or simply quoted Margaret connects.com.