Mortgage Connects an MGIC Podcast

Finding opportunity in adversity: A conversation with top originator and content creator Ryan Hills

• MGIC MI

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Dean Dardzinski, Vice President Managing Director of the Pacific region for MGIC, joins us as guest host on this special episode of Mortgage Connects. Dean interviews Ryan Hills, Regional Director of Movement Mortgage and host & CEO of RE Source TV. They discuss the evolution of Ryan’s business and the highlights of his successful career as a top originator and content creator.

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Dean Dardzinski (00:03):
Well, welcome to mortgage connects by MGIC, bringing you the latest insights from top more professionals around the industry. My name's Dean Dardzinski. I am the vice president managing director of the Pacific region for MGIC. And I'm really happy to be joined today by Ryan Hills sitting here, Puyallup, Washington, which many people would look at and say PLO, but that's an inside joke for us locals. Ryan is the regional director of movement mortgage, but also the host and CEO of the RE source TV, which we're gonna get into a little bit when we get into our conversation. So thanks for joining me. We we've appreciate you taking time to join us on our podcast today.

Ryan Hills (00:44):
Yeah, appreciate it, man. I'm excited to, to do longform all day long and hopefully people find this interesting. We'll see My hope too. I'm sure they'll let you know if, if it's not.

Dean Dardzinski (00:53):
Yeah, I think it's always interesting to hear how people get into the mortgage business. I don't think anybody goes to college to become a mortgage professional, but how did you find your way into the mortgage business? And when did you enter the business?

Ryan Hills (01:03):
Yeah, I think you're a hundred percent, right. I, I still have not met somebody that went to college to, to get into mortgage and my stories completely different than, than most. And when I say different it's, it's kind of like par for the course. Usually there's some crazy story that happened. And then mortgage was like the backup all option. But I actually went to, to Bible college, I thought I was gonna be a youth pastor. And I was, I was in school to basically earn my degree and I was running a youth group of like 200 kids and my wife and I, we loved it. I'm a big kid, you know, that we've hung out a lot. We've been to ox games and stuff. So I'm just a big kid and doors closed, long stories, short doors closed on, on that like path for my life, which was weird, cuz it's like usually doors don't close in, in like ministry, like, like, Hey, you're, you're willing to like give your life to this thing, but yeah, of course we'll take you.

Ryan Hills (01:54):
And it just didn't work out. And it was before the great recession and kind of put all eggs in that basket and you know, looking back, I probably could have weathered the storm and got a different direction with that without initial calling. But at the same time it was right before things kind of exploded in the housing industry. And I knew a lot of friends, I was 26 ish, which is kind of a good age to get in this business. And they like buddy over here went to the mortgage industry. Buddy here went to the Morgan street. I'm like, what's going on? What's going on? And things, weren't kind of working out with what I thought my wife and I were gonna do. So kind of searching for answers like, well, what am I gonna do now? And you know, they just kind of threw out, Hey, why don't you come like interview with, with this, with this group in actually just down the street from Puyallup and Sumner with Sam who, you know he got me in the business and did an interview and he was, you know, good Christian Guy and had good, good ethics and good values.

Ryan Hills (02:54):
And I didn't really have any pressure cause I didn't know what I was getting into. So the interview for me was comfortable like you and I sitting here today just talking but later he said, Hey, that you were probably the best interview I had. And I'm like, I wasn't even trying. I wasn't. And he had already hired like 10 or 15 loan officers at point at that point. But I think it was just cuz I went in there without any pressure and he offered me a job, which was like a lifeline. I felt like it was really confusing my life at that point, I thought I was going this direction and then it didn't work out. And that lifeline just seemed like, you know, essentially a lifeline I'm like, I'm gonna take this. I have no idea what mortgage is, how to do it.

Ryan Hills (03:33):
Who to connect with to get, you know, to get business. And I said, all right, well I'm just gonna kind of walk through this door cuz this door shut over here. Yeah. so got in the business. And I was used to, you know, when you're in ministry, you have to share a message with a group of people in a short amount of time. You have to understand it. They have to connect to it. Right. And there's there's action items. There's takeaways after that. So for me, once I learned the business, I was able to connect with people and teach because of my background. It's it's when I got, you know, when I got into video much later, it's one of the reasons why day one with video, I was comfortable in front of people. I used to have to do this live. Yeah. I speak in front of a couple hundred people again, craft a message, have it make sense and have a takeaway. So when video started, you know, later in my career I was like, oh, this is easy. I can mess up now. You know? So I was used to having to articulate things in a short, you know, fashion and, and try to have 'em make sense. So that's the classic way from ministry to, to mortgage. You've heard it a thousand times. I'm sure. Yeah.

Dean Dardzinski (04:35):
Ministry to mortgage. Maybe the first time I've heard

Ryan Hills (04:37):
That really. You might have not even known that back story.

Dean Dardzinski (04:39):
Yeah. I did not know that backstory. So that is interesting. So you got in, you started right before the great recession, was it? '05, '06, '07

Ryan Hills (04:46):
'04, So I had a couple good years, couple

Dean Dardzinski (04:47):
Good years. And then you know, one of the things that we'll focus this conversation on is something that you said when I was watching you moderate a panel about a month ago, which is finding the opportunity in the adversity. Yeah. And, and you start and then there's a lot of adversity. Yeah. And you know, you, you made a big change in how you approached the market. And it really, I think it really catapulted you into a whole different world. Talk a little bit about the change you made and why you made and how you came to that decision. Yeah.

Ryan Hills (05:23):
Yeah. I remember remember the change or at least the forced, you know, change because I had a couple good years you know, before the great recession hit and we were doing prime and subprime stuff. So I remember like great recession hit and back then it was still when we had papers. So you probably remember all the loan files were in the Manila envelopes and they were stacked on my desk and you could, you could look at 'em and this is awful, but you could kind of equate like how much you were gonna make cuz you knew what the loan file was that loan loan amount and compensation. So they're like, oh that was, you know, probably $50,000 sitting on my desk and income at that time. And then the, the recession hit and like all these lenders were shutting their doors overnight and it's almost like you were watching the, the Manila almost disappear as each lender goes, you know, under like overnight that quickly.

Ryan Hills (06:12):
And I went from, you know, getting in the business, having an early success to going, oh my, oh my God, what am I gonna do? Yeah. Like everything like the, the rug and the house got pulled out from underneath me. Like everything was over. I hadn't been in the business for that long. So some of my peers had done it for 10 years prior. They had realtors and a database to pull from. They had a lot going for them. I only had a, a couple good years before things went south. So, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. So at a necessity I'm like, well, I don't have any other option, but to continue to try to tread water and, and make it in this business. So what am I gonna do? And I was forced to kind of go, okay, I gotta, I gotta do something different.

Ryan Hills (06:52):
So originally this is the, like the origin store of the, a SOS. I was like, well I don't know a lot of realtors cause I was still pretty young in the business. So I needed to meet realtors. I'm like, well, there's only eight hours in a day. So that that's a lot of, that's a lot of coffee meetings, eight of 'em and I'm gonna be jacked up at the end of the day. So I could do that. I can go one on one belly to belly or I could try to work a little bit smarter and start creating content that hopefully is gonna be two realtors in Puyallup, in Sumner so that I can connect with them. And, and hopefully we'll be like mind and we can do business and it worked. So I just started doing video at that time. Frank and Brian, some of your listeners might know them.

Ryan Hills (07:30):
They're kind of the OGs in the video space. They were running the national real estate post. I kind of just patterned in it, off of their, their vibe. It was, you know, five minutes. It was whatever was relevant for the week. And what I didn't know then is realtors were in the same boat and a lot of other loan officers, it felt like it was just me going through it, but they were struggling too. And so people were kind of clamoring for something to like grab a hold onto. And it was information on, okay, this is what's happening this week. This lender went under the, this one opened up, this product opened up. And so people started connecting with it really quick, cuz I didn't know that they were in the same boat that I was. And so it worked, thank God it worked, it actually put me in touch with realtors in Puyallup.

Dean Dardzinski (08:12):
And, and, and I want to just so we give context to Puyallup and Sumner. Yeah. We mentioned those to, you know, we're, we're not talking downtown Seattle or, you know, New York city give, given a, give a little bit of an idea of what is Puyallup and Sumner in terms of a market standpoint.

Ryan Hills (08:28):
It's you know, we, we joke about cow town USA, it's its suburb of a suburb. I don't even know what the population here it's, it's very small. It's, you know, if you it's, you know, east of Tacoma by 20 minutes, Tacoma's quite a bit bigger, but palls just a tiny town that nobody's ever heard of. There's a lot of lenders there, but then yeah, the target market, isn't huge. Yeah. And, and I didn't care. I was just trying to survive. I, I had a son and my wife was pregnant with Cameron and I had bought a house. Yeah. And I don't like losing. So I, I was just trying to find a way to like tread water or like stay alive. So I was just trying to connect with anybody that would, that would connect with me. And again, it worked out good.

Ryan Hills (09:10):
It was crazy. And, and because of, again, my, my history with, you know, stream being able to speak and articulate, you know and craft a message, like it worked pretty good. Like I was comfortable in front of camera. I was like one of the first questions I got like, well, how did you, how'd you get comfortable in front of camera? How did you know what to talk about? Well, it's weird how things work out. Like I had that kind of training that was leveraged in video. And we quickly, I mean, within a year, which one of the biggest takeaways for anybody getting into a new strategy, whether it's video or podcasts like this, like stay committed. We so often like do a thing for once or twice and then give up. Yeah. And go, oh, that thing didn't work. Well, dude, you've done it twice.

Ryan Hills (09:48):
Like give it a little bit more runway. And we committed in our commitment was once a week, every week without fail. So every Monday and still 12 years later, it's every Monday we come out with content and I wouldn't have got to, you know, the success that I'm at now without staying committed to the strategy. There's a million ways to make a million bucks. Yeah. Commit to one of 'em. I promise you. And if you commit, you're gonna find out what's working, what's not working. You're gonna tweak and you're gonna get there. Yeah. Our commitment was to video. And if you go back and look at 'em, there are awful. I don't know how people connected with us, but they were bad. But we just stayed committed. And so whatever strategy you choose, like one of the, my biggest takeaways for you is to stay committed to it.

Ryan Hills (10:27):
But a year later it seems like quick success, but tried doing something brand new for an entire year. Yeah. Weight loss school, working out video, like it's a, it's a long time before you really see ROI on it. But where we really knew that things took off is it worked. And I was able to connect with realtors in Puyallup, but then it started working outside our intended audience of Puyallup in Sumner and like south of Seattle and it started going statewide. And now I got people up north going, Hey man, you seem like a pretty cool dude to watch your video about this, that, and the other thing, can we meet for coffee? Oh, sweet. I wasn't thinking about people in Seattle. I was like my perspective of a straw, like perspective in this little town. And then it blew up into, you know, people in, in Washington state.

Ryan Hills (11:09):
And then what really took, you know, kind of injected steroids into the a source was the big national show at the time national real estate post. They, they noticed us and they said, Hey, we're getting at that time, they were rock stars. And they were traveling the country and speaking and they, they couldn't keep up with their video content. So they reached out to us to guest host. So we went from being in the south suburb of, of Seattle trying to be relevant to a handful of people to being on a national video stage and people who's this guy, you know, cuz they had a huge audience back, the biggest audience of any speaker to, you know, that was relevant back then they actually had the, the biggest audience. So they gave us an opportunity really just to kind of have their back while they were traveling.

Ryan Hills (11:53):
And then things really took off, you know, Washington became Oregon became Idaho. And like we started looking at our analytics and people are watching us from west east coast, like different countries. I'm like this mortgage, isn't that interesting people shouldn't be watching in Dubai, but we could, we could, we could see the analytics and you could see like so many hit play in Dubai, but that's, that's the beauty of social media. And that dates me. Yeah. You know, that was kind of the Dawn of really when social media took off, it was 10 to 12 years ago and we were plugging into that to deliver our message.

Dean Dardzinski (12:24):
It really? Yeah. You, you were, you were ahead of the curve I think by a pretty good amount. And I think, you know, going back to that asked you about Puyallup and Sumner. It, it doesn't ma you don't have to be in a big market, right? No, you know, this is, you've gone from small markets now nationally recognized how many subscribers do you have for RE source TV?

Ryan Hills (12:44):
Oh, RCS gonna kill me. Cause I don't know. You know, we have, there's a lot. There's a lot. Yeah. And we don't even have a very good big, you know, this, there's not a ton of mortgage originally. There's a million realtor, but originators there's probably 150,000 is my guess. Yeah. so we have a good market penetration with originators and, and realtors, but it could always be bigger. Like 12 years later, I'm still bothered that we're not bigger and more subscribers, but we have good, good penetration and the coolest thing. And if you ever wanna share an resource and like have our back when, when a regional, like me at like at a, at a competitor, shares it with like their whole team and you've done this with your whole team before, it's the best compliment that you could give us.

Ryan Hills (13:24):
Cause we don't, we still don't monetize a show. Yeah. We don't charge premium subscriber. There's no advertising and we can turn advertising on tomorrow if we want to. And so that that's like one of the best compliments, like somebody like Dean says, Hey man, I love that show. I just shared it with all of my team. Yeah. You know, 500 people or whatever it is. So if you ever find a good one, hopefully we we're still pumping out good ones. We got, we got Todd Dunning coming out next week. That's gonna be a really good one. Share it with your entire team. It's the, the nicest thing you can do for us.

Dean Dardzinski (13:50):
Well, and I think you've, you've when you talk about monetizing it, you've monetized it through the, and the context for is generated not through the content that you're creating. And you know, I think if you're, if you're doing it in the, with the mindset of I'm gonna help my customer's customer

Ryan Hills (14:08):
Yeah.

Dean Dardzinski (14:08):
That ends up benefiting you at the end of the day.

Ryan Hills (14:11):
Yeah, indirectly for sure that I was asked on a podcast, the other, you know, couple weeks ago, like, how'd you go from being, you know, when I was telling you, I was just trying to tread water one lo to running a four and a half billion dollar region in seven states now and kind of thought through, and I said, if you had to limit me to one thing, how I went from just being a, an lo by myself to, you know, 500 plus people on my team, it was absolutely video. Yeah. Because it, it, again, it connected me with realtors, but also loan officers that were in the same boat that I had no idea that were like, Hey, I kind of like this guy too. And I like what he's doing. Maybe I can, maybe I connect, connect with him and also weather the storm.

Ryan Hills (14:49):
So early on helped me. I was just talking about connecting with realtors, but I didn't tell you the story that, you know, some of the first LO's that I connected with came to me and said, I found you because of video. And I think we might be a good fit. I'm like, I don't even think about that. Yeah. I didn't even think about that, that strategy, but yeah, that sounds great. And then like first LO second, LO third, LO second branch, third branch, fourth branch. And now, you know, hopefully in the middle of the story and the story's not over, but seven states and we'll see where we go after that. But if I had to choose one thing that helped me get there and it was a lot of struggle and there's a lot more to it. I would, I would say video was the main connector from taking me from, by myself to where I'm at today. Yeah.

Dean Dardzinski (15:27):
Well, and that's you know, one of the questions I was gonna ask you about what you were into accomplish, but you kind of already, you've talked about that a little bit. It expanded your connection with the market, which then the definition of the market grew beyond just your town that you were operating into to now the metropolitan area to now the state to the region. Yeah. being in the Northwest. So let's take that now go for fast forward to today. You got a ton of people who subscribe, you got a ton of people who watch your sought after in terms of somebody to either moderate panels come join panels. You do a ton of interviews with top producers from all over the country. You know, you mentioned Todd Duncan. You've had Dave Savage on many times from the mortgage coach.

Dean Dardzinski (16:19):
You know, we're in this market right now where there's a lot of change happening. And it's something that many people, especially if they're newer to the business. And I would even say, you know, even in the last 10 years, you probably haven't seen the amount of change in, in the marketplace that we're going to see because of just the dynamic change, that's happening from a lot of refi. And you and I were just sitting here looking at numbers. And we said, you know, 2.9 trillion in refi. And we were looking back, I can't remember the the year that this goes back to 2004, you can't find a purchase market. And there are actually some total markets that didn't even reach 2.9 trillion. Yeah. So as you, as you talk to these people what are some of the challenges that they see in today's market and what are some of the challenges that you individually see in the market?

Ryan Hills (17:09):
Super relevant question. Cuz I've been focusing on that question too. Like the last we've had some absolute hitters on the show this year Denise Donahue mortgage nerd out of Texas 722 units, you know, you talk about top 1% originator. She's probably top 0.01%. Dan Keller, $200 million producer, Todd Bookspan, Uber success will win by Dave Savage, Todd Duncan. And I, I asked him the kind of the same question, like, wow, things are moving so quickly, whether you're new or you're a top 1% or you're, you're kind of in the same boat, like cuz volume slowed down, you know rates went up, housing supplies really limited. So like what do you do? And I've asked them and they had, there's some really good content not to like pimp the show out, but yeah, they,

Dean Dardzinski (18:00):
Well, we'll get to that. Yeah.

Ryan Hills (18:02):
Go back and watch those. They're not, they're not good because I was in them. They were good because I was able to ask good question. And, and with, they basically answer your question too, like what would they do? And it it's so tough to say, answer that for the individual originator because everybody's business is different and everybody has different strengths, but that's why like I, I know back to my saying that I love to say there's a million ways to make a million bucks. It's the same way with originators, whether you're a realtor or an originator, there's somebody that has kind of been that trailblazer for you to show you how to build that business. Same way we got in video. I didn't create video. I watched Frank and Brian in national real estate post and patterned my, our, our show after that. So originators, some are great at else, salesmanship.

Ryan Hills (18:50):
Like they're just amazing at connecting with people and business follows, but they really struggle in fulfilling a loan. They struggle with the, the loan manufacturing process. There's strength in that. And you gotta build a team around you to kind of be the end to your yang. And there's some originators that, that are listening that are amazing at manufacturing loans, but they really they're introvert and they struggle with going out and finding more business, cuz they're just introverts, but you give 'em a deal and it's gonna be, you know, closed on time to be perfect. Like it's gonna be on point. So you know what I've learned from talking to originators across the country and asking that same question is there isn't one blueprint that works, thankfully, cuz I'd struggle if we all had to copy that. But there's, there's quite a few and you just gotta pick your own and, and make it your own.

Ryan Hills (19:38):
You know, whether it's Denise, whether it's Dan Kellers, you know, whether it's Dave Savage and, and your all about financial literacy, whether it's video like mine, not everybody wants to do video and, but there's a lot of people that can, so I guess the good news is guys, you don't have to like reinvent the wheel. Yes. Things are tougher. Yes. It's you know, a new world. If you're, if you've been doing this business, you've lived through the Dawn of no social media and now social media and you're probably struggling on how to leverage social media. You don't have to be all things to all people. There's a lot of people that just crush it just in YouTube, just in video, just in financial literacy and teaching classes, million ways to make a million bucks choose, choose your path. Yeah. Commit to it. You might, you might not find success in the first week or two. It might take you a year like it did for us, but you know, you stay at it and you'll be relevant and you'll you'll weather the storm. That answer your question. I don't know if it did.

Dean Dardzinski (20:34):
Yeah. Well I think that's the hard part about it, right? Everybody's looking for the silver bullet. Yeah. There is no silver bullet. There's a lot of commitment that needs to have that, that an individual needs to have. And there's a lot of discipline around that commitment. Like you said, you can't do it for a week or two and just be like, wait, I haven't got any loans from this sale. I'm I'm stopping you. You gotta, you gotta build it and you gotta feed it and you gotta watch it grow and you gotta keep adjusting to to continue to make sure it grows.

Ryan Hills (21:04):
Well, measure it too. It's okay. I, I learned more from, what's not working. Yeah. You know, than what's working.

Dean Dardzinski (21:11):
It's one of the things that I see, you know, just, just in my role. And I think all people sales, people see, are we good at measuring things?

Ryan Hills (21:19):
No.

Dean Dardzinski (21:20):
Well, we're good at measuring the bottom line. Right? Right. What, what, what was my income last month? But it's, it's measuring, what did I, I do to get there? How did I do it? Why did I do it and what worked better than others? So I, you know, as you talk about some of the measurements that you guys look at, you know, how do you measure what you're doing and what makes you decide I'm gonna do a versus B.

Ryan Hills (21:43):
Yeah. I'm a, I'm a mortgage nerd. If you haven't figured that out. And so I'll nerd out. My that's why you showed me stats earlier and I'm starting to dig into it. I, you know, we measure everything. We have a software called Domo and it, it tells me everything about the business. I'm in it. I'm in the business. There's working in your business. There's working on, on the business. I'm in the business. Most of the time.

Dean Dardzinski (22:03):
I wanna, I wanna, you said working in the business versus working on the business. Talk to me about the difference between between working in the business and working on the business.

Ryan Hills (22:10):
Yeah. So for sure, like, and then this just don't check out, cuz this is maybe a regional conversation. If you're an lo and you're building a team with an LOA, this will apply a promise you. And if you're a realtor listening and you're hiring your first listing and buyer's agent, this will apply. But working in your business is exactly the question you asked of studying your metrics, knowing you know, where the landmines are, whether your loaner apps are trending down, your locks are trending down. Your pricing exceptions are trending up. That's working in your business, studying your leads. Oh wow. Zillow's turned off. If I'm a realtor, but over here, realtor.com is turned on. I'm working in my business. I'm understanding everything about the business. Most people don't even do that. And you should be doing that. Whether you're a single LO, single realtor, an LO with the team, realtor with the team, you should be studying your business.

Ryan Hills (22:56):
That's working in your business, working on your business is the outside kind of offensive, like where, okay. Zillow has slowed down in leads. Okay, well, I've gotta start working on the business and figure out what am I gonna do? Am I gonna accept the fact that my leads have dropped 20%? Or am I gonna find another way to add 20%, maybe another 10% in, in lead gen, that's working on your business for, for real regionals under LOs, trying to scale their individual businesses is who else? Like Dean, who do you know that I should know of? That should be working with me now, I'm working on my business. That's not in it. It's going. And Dean says, well, oh man, there's a guy in shales. That's a great originator. And you know what I mean? Like now we're connecting and finding whether, you know, that's new LOAs, new underwriters, new LO's, I'm going out there growing the business.

Ryan Hills (23:48):
So when I say work on versus work in that's the difference to me, one is understanding the metrics, understanding the why it's functioning the way it is. The other one is more offensive and growing and healthy things grow. Yeah. So I, I, I understand markets have cycles. I understand healthy. But I don't like to shrink yeah. During those cycles. So I'm I for six months I knew. And so did you know, Casey Crawford, great leadership we knew, and that the NBA was gonna show these projections that the refi market was gonna drop 40% purchase business was gonna increase nine. So we worked in our business and kind of figured out, okay, that's gonna equal X amount drop in volume. Okay. Do you want to accept that? Or do you want to run outrun that? Well, how do you outrun that we gotta go grow?

Ryan Hills (24:33):
So for six months prior to this shift, we have been working to outrun this and add really, really good people to our organization. Not just, Hey, there's an empty seat. Let's add an originator who is a great fit for our culture that will help us out outrun and thrive during this next big shift in the market. So again, that's the difference of, I understand, I worked, I worked in the business to understand what my business was about to go through in 2022. Then I started working on my business to make sure that we made it through better than our peers did. And we added collectively the organization added 4 billion in per, in, in added volume. We, we grew the company that much, which is to put that in perspective, guys, there's probably a thousand independent mortgage bankers that are a billion dollars in totality. We added 4 billion in just like the last 80-90 days, a hundred days. So that's, that's like added a small mortgage, maybe even a medium size mortgage company to help us weather this huge reduction in volume. That's coming our way. So that's a really long answer to yeah. In and on your well

Dean Dardzinski (25:36):
It's, it's it kind of going off topic a little bit, but you know, you talk about data and analytics and, and I think that's you know, the new catch phrase for, for everything. That's cool about looking at working in your business.

Ryan Hills (25:49):
But LO is very few guys. I'm an LO so I'm not talking at you, I'm with you. Yeah. We don't like to study where we got our business. We don't have a mechanism in place, whether it's a CRM or even an Excel spreadsheet to go back and go, well, I closed a hundred transactions or did they come from, you know, who referred them? Like we, we should know that that's working in your business, whether you're an individual LO or you're running a region or a company, we have to know our business and that's working in your business. And we don't do a very good job at that. But we're entrepreneurs, whether you're w two for movement, MGIC Guild, guaranteed rate, you should always treat it as your own business. You're the entrepreneur of your own business. I get it. You're not self-employed, but I promise you if you treat it like this is your own business, things will change for you. You'll have a different perspective. You'll take yourself from, you know, a 10, a 10 10 foot level to a 10,000 foot level of running a business versus, oh my God, where's my next deal. Where's my next deal. Where's my next deal. That's that's not a fun place to be when you're just chasing a single deal versus running a business. You know what I'm saying? So that's the importance. We weren't even gonna talk about working in and on your business.

Dean Dardzinski (26:56):
Yeah. We kinda gone off off that, but

Ryan Hills (26:58):
Its super relevant with 2022 and what we're facing right now.

Dean Dardzinski (27:01):
If, if I I've not done that and I'm an originator out there or I'm a realtor out there how do I start? Where do I start working in my business?

Ryan Hills (27:10):
Yeah. It's it's really, and you can use an Excel spreadsheet to really start measuring your leads, your conversion rate. If you, you know, there's there's entire court coaching companies that will, well, you know, building champions with the core that will give you like the spreadsheets to that. But honestly it's really just, you know, having a mechanism, whether it's Excel or you, you purchase a CRM, there's a million of 'em out there to measure the important things like how you get your business, who are you getting it from? How many leads do you have to convert to get one closing? Do you even know that? No you don't. So you gotta go in and start gathering the Intel to do the conversion rate. Very, very smart originators. Again, I've learned this from an interviewing the top 1% across the nation. They know those numbers.

Ryan Hills (27:55):
I promise you. And they'll spit 'em out like the back of their hand, like Dean, I gotta talk to a hundred people cause that's gonna equal 10 closing and I gotta talk and they'll break it down to even a day. I gotta talk to and some of 'em are it's it's it's literally 50 people a day. Cause they know if I talk to 50, it, it equals, you know, whatever their conversion rate is. Five closings. Now you're talking about being intentional and strategic and running a business. See the difference of that of, oh, I just gotta find where my next deal's coming from. Like there, there's not even a Harrison to a person running a business versus chasing their next year. So that's my encouragement to you is that's a great question, Dean. You know, start, start measuring it all. It'll give you data data.

Ryan Hills (28:36):
I love data cuz it doesn't have feelings. There's no feelings and data. It's just facts. It'll tell you why you're slow. It'll tell you where your conversion rate sucks. It may hurt your feelings, but there's no feelings and data. Data is just facts. And then you gotta go do the hard work and go, okay, now that I've worked in my business, I understand it better. Now that I gotta go work on it and I gotta go figure out why my, my conversion rate sucks or why my leads have dropped this year. And you know, it's like, okay, I've gotta go fix that. But there's there's no, there's no problem to solve. You don't have two plus two equals what? And in that analogy two plus two is your conversion, your leads and, and the data of your business.

Dean Dardzinski (29:13):
I that's, that's great advice. And I think so many times as, as I'm out in the market and I get the benefit of walking through all kinds of different shops and seeing all kinds of different people, good, bad in different, whatever it might be. You don't see that many people really digging to that detail. It's just, I got, I got the Johnson loan. It's gotta close, let's get this thing closed. And then the next one's the Smith one. Let's get the Smith one, but, but nobody's figuring out how do I get the Adams deal in here? Right? Who's gonna give me the Adams deal. Where am I gonna go find it? And, and who's my best target to find it.

Ryan Hills (29:47):
How do I add an entire builder? That'll give me a hundred deals a year. Yeah. You know? Yeah. How do I add 15 realtors this year? You know, it's, it's tough. And, and I'll tell you to get real practical and in the weeds, the reason why originator struggle with that is because they don't have that first person that they hire is so difficult. And there's a lot of turnover because as you know, as originators, we're just, we're not patient enough, honestly, to hire that first person. And once you have like that first strong yin to your yang, and typically that's an LOA that's really good at fulfillment and loans. Once you have that person that allows you to what, what frees up time and, and, and head space for you to go out and find people versus like you said, worrying about the Smith loan.

Ryan Hills (30:31):
Well, no, Sally, my LOA or Johnny my LOA is doing that. Yeah. So that frees me up to go out and run a business and, and think bigger versus just that single loan for today. So that's tough one and you'll see, and you'll talk and I've talked to a lot of teams once they got that first and second, like person in place, their business exploding. Yeah. And you, and it's really difficult. Cause again, I think we just we're too quick and we don't, we don't vet out these people very well. They it's okay to, to interview, you know, 10 to 15 people to hire one. That's actually probably the minimum that you share. Yeah. What we like to do is cuz we're, we're impatient is we wanna hire the first person that raises their hand says, Hey Dean, I'll join your team. Hey Ryan, I'll join your team. Okay. Come on. And you didn't ask any questions to see if you're a good fit, you know? So again, that's another encouragement like vet out and it's okay to have high expectations. You should, should have very high expectations. It's your brand, it's your name on the wall? You know, that person that you're hiring is gonna represent you. So identify those high expectations, let them know that this is what I'm looking for and try to find the person that's gonna hold those expectations for you so that you can go out and grow your business.

Dean Dardzinski (31:39):
Yeah. So you going back I asked the question about what are people talking about in terms of challenges and in today's market kind of flip that a little bit and we've talked about a little bit of the opportunities, you know, you mentioned the downturn and refi, but not a lot of people focus on, you know, they say we're, we're gonna focus on purchase this year. And I think before we started having the conversation and hit the record button, we, we were looking back at those purchase numbers and you know, so as you look at the opportunities that exist in today's market, right? Yeah. This couple different ways, one what's the opportunity that exists. Kinda like what you did back in right after the downturn. When you, when you formed our source TV, what's that opportunity that's laying out there. And then what, what should you be focusing on in terms of opportunity? Cause I could focus on the, the 40% decline in refis. That's not a very good place to be from a mindset standpoint.

Ryan Hills (32:34):
Yeah.

Dean Dardzinski (32:35):
I could focus on record purchase production. You know, that that's a pretty good mind space to be, right. So from those two different angles, what, what, what would you suggest to people?

Ryan Hills (32:47):
This'll probably sound cliche, but Todd Duncan was on, like I said, and he was telling, he was telling a story when he got into business and Bryan was like 20%, there were recession and you know, rates were rising and volume was slowing. And everybody's looking at Todd Duncan who we know is like an icon in the business 30 years later going, why did you get in this business, dude? What the heck, man, we're in a recession, like things are falling apart and I loved his mindset. And before you even capture opportunity, in my opinion, you have to have the right mindset. But he said to, he said to his realtors and stuff that he was calling on the first year, that would go, dude, why are you out here calling the world's falling down? What are you doing? And he said, well, apparently I've heard we're in a recession, but I don't, I'm not choosing to participate.

Ryan Hills (33:35):
And I just loved. I'm like that's and I jumped on that on the show. You'll hear me go. That's so true. Cuz guess what? And, and you know, as we're filming this and you know, rumor has it, we're in a war. Okay, well I'll respect that. But guess what? That doesn't mean? My business has to slow down. Rumor has it. We're in a massive housing, short housing shortage. I'll respect that too, but that doesn't define my success. Rumor has it, rates are going up great. I'm not like, I just love the mindset of going. I'm gonna go into 20, 22 with the war and housing shortage and rising rates and just go, I don't, I'm not gonna participate. I'm not gonna let my mind focus on those things. I'm gonna try to find again, like you said, and I was talking about the opportunity in the adversity and very, very smart individuals will, will look to take market share in markets like this.

Ryan Hills (34:20):
They steal, they grow in market, share others shrink away. And this is where if you're new or if you're just getting your mind right for this year, if you have that mindset, everyone else is gonna be thinking about yesterday year and how easy it was, how 1920 and 21. And man, I didn't even have to call anybody. And I was closed in 20 deals a month and they'll sit there and lane and, and talk and commiserate about yesterday year. Meanwhile, the person that's out there, planting seeds and aggressive and not participating in all this negative drama, guess what? They're stealing your business. So if I'm an originator, you know, I don't know if you remember this movie. God, it was called Friday with ice cube and, and yeah, it was your, your listeners might if they're my age, but back in the day, there's this on

Dean Dardzinski (35:07):
Friday, I'm too old for that

Ryan Hills (35:09):
Different generation, Dean. But there's this like one of the characters, like a mean thug. And he goes and like steals. Everybody's bike. My, my point with that and tough stay with me around around a, about analogy is his name was Deebo. The character's name was Deebo. And I said, we need to have a Deebo mindset where I'm gonna go take not your bike, but your realtor, I'm gonna go take your business. We need to have this Deebo like mindset where we're in 2022, whoever's complaining about Y I don't care. I'm not participating in that. I'm gonna go steal your builder. I'm gonna go steal your market share, and I'm gonna steal your realtors. If you're not careful, like that sounds aggressive. But if, if you want to thrive in this market, you have to have that mindset of I'm going to steal market share.

Ryan Hills (35:51):
And when you steal something, what happens? You take it from somebody else. That's how this works. Somebody had that market share. And whether you're long in the tooth in this business, and we have a lot of them, I'm one of them. I got, I got gray hair, but I'm still, you know, young and I'm in this business, but there's some people that are just gonna go, man. I was just waiting for that last refi. And I think I might hanging up Ryan or Dean, like I'm, I'm good. So there's people that are gonna retire out and that aren't long for the business there's entire companies that aren't long, long for the business, somebody's going to steal their market share. Is it going to be you?

Dean Dardzinski (36:24):
It's interesting. You, we were joking. Last time we saw each other was at a mortgage bankers dinner. You were moderating a panel. And I think that was the day that the market that the tenure went over to, I think, and we were joking about every was sitting there looking at their phones and it wasn't rain.

Ryan Hills (36:41):
It was your knowledge.

Dean Dardzinski (36:42):
Yeah, my knowledge and it's two way, right? It's a two-way form of communication. Things can go out just like things can go in and, and we've got that, that outbound activity that proactive activity versus reactive activity is what we've got.

Ryan Hills (36:58):
And it's like, it works for Todd 30 years ago, people are attracted to success and positivity, not negativity. So when you come out and you're contrarian and everybody else is complaining about rates and housing and, and you're excited and you want to earn their business. If, if you're on the other side of that, wouldn't you rather have that than some person talking about why their life sucks and they didn't save enough money through the last, the last great run, like be a contrarian. The herd's always, always wrong. Yeah. You know, so I that's, that's the opportunity, whether that turns into video or just, you know, meeting people face to face, like that was a tough one last two years. How do you meet people when everything's shut down? You know, your guys, same, same for your business. You would go meet people at their office and connect with them.

Ryan Hills (37:43):
And, and that was a tough one. But again, contrarian find there's a lot of people that want to sit down like we are right now, then have a real conversation. We, we respect the pandemic in COVID, but people are people and there's human nature in all of us that want to connect, you know, with people in person versus virtually. So again, find the opportunity adversity, adversity has, has shut things down, but there's still a lot of people out there that want to go, you know, break bread, you know, have a glass of wine, have a beer with you and connect to the positive person. The one that's leaning forward, that's trying to take market share versus, you know, complain about yesterday year.

Dean Dardzinski (38:19):
Yeah. Talk about that a little bit because you know, I heard you say once about varying your communication. And as you, as you look at the pandemic the impact that's clearly had an impact on how we interact with people. And our customers, you know, maybe now it's more virtual. They don't necessarily wanna come into the office cause they've found other ways to communicate as you look at that. Yeah. Talk about what that means to the future. And then talk about the importance of varying that communication as you work with either clients, because you're helping them get into homes or perspective referral partners.

Ryan Hills (38:56):
Yeah. I think this applies to everybody, whether you're realtor, you're in, you know, you work at MGIC, you know, whatever doesn't matter

Dean Dardzinski (39:05):
Sales is, it

Ryan Hills (39:06):
Sales is sales. And what, what the opportunity has been over the last 10 years is this explosion of social media and technology. And the trap is to get caught into one of these streams and there's multiple streams and everybody's different whether they connect. We were talking about this in the green room when we had a show years ago, years ago, if you can find it called respecting the psychology of social, social, social media. And why that's important is people live different places. Some of us still live predominantly in Facebook, oddly enough, you know, that's kind of the, the, the old dog in social media, but a lot of us still live in Facebook. Some of us live in Instagram, you know, the younger generation is a little bit, you know, gen X is in Instagram, gen Y is probably more in TikTok and stuff.

Ryan Hills (39:52):
So if you're out there trying to connect with the masses, everybody wants to you, you know, communicates differently and where they live is different. And so that's why it's so difficult just to pick one of these streams and just be relevant in one, because you might be missing, you know, entire generations that aren't living in this stream. And so you have to vary your forms of communication. Now, I'm, I'm talking about this in terms of connecting with in a sales role, like me being an lo trying to connect with realtors or financial planners builders. But it's also true. Like when you, when you have a transaction, whether you're a realtor or you're a loan officer, and you guys know this, like some of 'em wanna still do old school value to value to paper, some of 'em wanna leverage technology and upload, you know, everything digital view their phone, and you have to vary your forms of communication with fulfillment, but also with sales.

Ryan Hills (40:43):
So it's, it's a, it's a good reminder that you can't just do one thing and expect amazing results because you can't be all things to all people. And you certainly can't if you're just leveraging one form of communication. So it that's where questions and really listening to your, your, your customer really matter. And this also is true in leadership, cuz your customers are your, your branch managers, your area managers, like they also choose to be communicated with differently. So it applies to everything, sales leadership. And sometimes people just wanna see video to me cause I still do video inside the organization and sometimes I gotta go, no, this is somebody that really wants to see me. I need to carve out time to travel, to go see them. You probably understand that better than I do, man. You've been doing this for a long time at a very high level.

Ryan Hills (41:32):
So you know, you know, just off of, you know, the more, you know, your people, the more, you know, your target audience, the more, you know, how they need to be con connected with and spoken to. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's, you know, the biggest thing I, I would say in terms of going out and getting new business is don't get stuck in one strategy. Yeah. Don't get stuck dropping off flyers. Some people still like 'em, you know, but a lot don't, don't get stuck just in Facebook. You know, some people are still there, many have moved on and I get that's where it's tough. And you could, you know, if you're listening, you're probably like, dude, I, so I gotta learn Facebook. I gotta learn Instagram. I go TikTok and flyers. Well, you don't have to be a master at all of 'em, but you do, you, you definitely need to understand them

Dean Dardzinski (42:16):
Or at least ask the question. If you've got a new client that you're checking a loan app, how do you want to be communicated with yeah. That, that, that can be one that doesn't get asked all that often.

Ryan Hills (42:25):
Yeah. One of the best strategies I've seen Miguel's one of the most efficient loan officers. He have close to a hundred million dollars in production and he tries to put everybody on a text thread versus sending out individual emails to the listing agent buying agent Fraiser, you know, and then borrower he'll have a mutual thread or, or the whole life cycle of the loan lives. And so nobody's left out of the loop. I, I was like, God, that was so smart just to have a mutual to X thread. And then there's no, well, Dean, this guy said this and then this guy, you know, it's no, it all lives on one thread and not everybody's comfortable with that, but if you can do eight outta 10 transactions with that strategy, why not? Yeah. You know, your efficiency goes up versus having individual phone calls and emails to all of 'em. Yeah. So mutual threads on text are underutilized in my opinion.

Dean Dardzinski (43:17):
So I wanna go back last question here, you know, talking about working in your business, working on your business, you've been a master of creating content, my perspective and I think you've done a great job of that and putting it in a format that people like to listen to look forward, to listen, to

Dean Dardzinski (43:36):
Finding the content and, and, and going back to that being, being in your, working in your business, what do you look to for resources when you're going to look okay? What, what are the experts saying? Where are the experts saying? And who are the experts? Where, where do you go? And you know, if you're not, as you're listening to this, if, if you signed up with our resource TV, it is a great resource. It's a fun resource. You to, sometimes you have a lot of fun with it, but it it's just a good compilation of what is going on in the market. And you do have a lot of thought leaders that are there. So definitely check that out. But from your perspective, what are some of the resources you utilize?

Ryan Hills (44:14):
It's when we travel and speak, that's like the number one question, should we get, like, how do you continue to come up with content that's relevant? That's our, that's our goal. Every, we never want to bore you. It's the goal and the strategy is what can we talk about this week that is actually relevant. And it's one thing to do it for a year, but for 12 years straight and still be relevant. Like that's, that's our biggest challenge. And so we have a slide that we've built. Cause we get the question a lot and I'll walk you through it cuz you guys can do it at home. I'm I'm, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Like here's my blueprint. Yeah. and of how I for 12 years come out with something relevant, you know, every week. So picture a gigantic like funnel.

Ryan Hills (44:51):
This is the slide that we've created and I'm content junky myself. I'm a mortgage nerd. So at the top of this big funnel are all the resources, you know, whether that's housing wire or Inman news, I think you had one earlier that you, that I inside mortgage finance, inside mortgage finance, there's a million, right? And so I have probably 20 or 30 different vendors that drip on me throughout the week. So on Monday picture Monday is the, the top of the funnel on Friday is when we shoot. So on Friday is the bottom of the funnel. And I got all these stories kind of swirling around this funnel. And you know, throughout the week I'm starting to actually start right. The show based off of what maybe came out on Monday like lately and revenue's been down, you know, shocker and volumes slowed and margins have thin.

Ryan Hills (45:40):
And so there's layoffs. You've heard about that. Better.com, fire three, you know, 3000 people. So you like, I'll start to get stories that are starting to have a theme and you can see, you know, housing wire might touch on it. You know, there might be a realtor story that kind of connects. And so how I've come up with something every week for the last 12 years is throughout the week, I'll read all these stories and then I'll kind of make 'em my own. At the end of Friday, I'll kind of tie in. Usually it'll be four or five of the most relevant stories I've read. And I know they're one relevant, you know, it's timely, they're came out this week. And on Friday I'm gonna put my spin on it and kind of connect. Sometimes we connect three or four stories that didn't even know they should be connected.

Ryan Hills (46:21):
Like one, one of 'em was very Habib mentioned one of our guests that comes on a lot. He was talking about this market and how every house goes over asking price. Right. And so the question now for you, this is God's really good resource. If you missed it, should I bid over the asking price? And that actually was a story that I think it was housing wire that wrote like, is that good for your borrower? It's a great question. Some people maybe not depending on their capital and where they're at in their life, some people it's okay. But it was kind of a cliffhanger like should people bid over the asking price? Well, Barry actually has a tool called bid over ask. So I'm married two stories to go, Hey, these guys pose a really good question. Guess what? There's another resource that you guys probably don't know of, but here's the bid over ask tool that does the homework for you and realtors cuz it's, you know, Barry's a mortgage guy MBS highway.

Ryan Hills (47:14):
These realtors are like, oh my God, I had no idea this resource even existed. Can I sign up for it? So that's kind of a practical way of how that two stories get married together. On Friday, we film Friday, it comes out on Monday, but that's the content funnel and the, I guess it takes pressure off if you're kind trying to come up with your own content, like I don't have to sit there every week and go, let me just think about this is amazing idea. Yeah. To talk about on Monday. No it's gonna be, what is the news and what, how, how can I tie that together for both realtors and lenders to where it makes sense. That's, that's the blueprint a ton of a ton of content on Monday, sit throughout the week. And on Friday I distill it down to a five minute, three to five minute show.

Ryan Hills (47:52):
Yeah. That makes sense. And we provide the resources. That's why we're called, you know, the, a source or the source for real estate, a source. So I'm gonna give you those resources to go, oh, that was really good content. Let me go look at this bit over ask tool or let me go share this information about, you know, why listing prices are up 20%. So that's kind of the, the blueprint of the show and how we've continued to come out with relevant content, hopefully relevant content. Yeah. The last 12 years. And then last two years, three years, we've we kind of pivoted to the masterclass stuff, which is where you've seen like Todd Duncan ran Rodriguez, Dave Savage, Clayton Collins from housing. Why? So again, because think back dude, I was just trying to survive in Puyallup, Washington. Yeah. And now we have like the most amazing speakers that are willing to come in and donate their time to our community to share, you know, whether it's, you know, Barry creator of MBSI or Clayton Collins, a creator of housing wire, you know, their secrets to ha Duncan, you know it's so cool that these guys would actually, I'm so humbled that they would take time to be on the show and like we're not paying them.

Ryan Hills (48:56):
They're donating their time to the industry, just like we are to, to give valuable content. So the last three years, I'm really excited. We've pivoted to the masterclass series where, and we're gonna continue to do that, where we can pull people across the nation that are very successful and do what you're doing. Kind of ask questions, kind of like peel back the onion and go, Hey, take me back. Like, how'd you get there? And that was one thing from the four part series with Denise Donahue, her sister was her name's Deborah Bird. She runs plug and play social media. She made a really good point of a lot of times people will compare themselves and they're on chapter one and of their career people in chapter 36, like that's not fair. You can't compare yourself at chapter one to somebody at chapter 36. And so the reason that's important is cuz they look at a top producer and they go, I could never do that. I could never do seven or 22 transactions. Well maybe not, you know, tomorrow or even this year, but that's why like these conversations are important. I said, you know, take me back to when you did 10 transactions a year 20 so that we can kind of outline that blueprint to help other people get to that 700 plus unit transaction year. So don't compare yourself on chapter one to somebody else's chapter 36. I

Dean Dardzinski (50:07):
That's that's great advice. And yeah, I wanna thank you for taking the time here this morning or this afternoon. A lot of great information, as I think back to some of the things you said, I think, you know, one working in your business versus working on business, you've gotta understand the analytics that drive your business in order to grow your business teach, you know, the more that you can teach people the better it's gonna be for you because you're setting proper expectations for your clients and for your referral partners. And there was one thing you said at the very end that just triggered it and, and it's, you know, you're, you're taking all this information that's out there and you're distilling down and you think a realtor would know, oh, there's this tool out there that allows me to determine, should I, should I make an offer for more than what the ask price is?

Dean Dardzinski (50:57):
And the realtor's like, I had no idea that it existed. So don't make the assumption that your referral partners, your clients, your borrowers, the information that you're speaking about, great point you know, there's a ton, people are, are really busy and the more that you can help them and educate them the better you'll be. So I wanna thank you for the time. We really appreciate it. Yeah, sure, man for those out there, thanks for listening for all the latest industry insights, if you've not added our resource TV to your to your, one of your resources, I would highly suggest that, but you can also find a ton of resources by subscribing to mortgage connects on Apple, Stitcher, Google podcast, Spotify, Amazon music, or you can go to mortgageconnects.com at MGIC and look for all these great resources. So thank you for your time. Thanks for listening. And everybody have a great day.