On this edition of the MovotoMic we have the opportunity to learn from Brian Covey, a seasoned leader in the mortgage industry. From playing professional soccer to becoming a leader in the mortgage industry … this episode covers it all. For more updates follow us on our facebook and instagram @movotorealestate and check out our website
Full Episode:
Full Transcript:
Patrick: [00:00:00] All right. Hello, and welcome to Movotomic, a new real estate podcast brought to you by Movoto. com. My name is Patrick Kearns. I’m an ex journalist and 10 year vet of the real estate industry, who’s currently working as Movoto’s head of communications. Here with me today, as always, is my associate, Sophie Brandeis.
Sophie, how you doing today?
Sophie: Doing great today, Patrick. No complaints. What about you?
Patrick: Uh, no complaints. It’s actually beautiful here in upstate New York. We finally passed the 70 degree mark. So I think winter is here. is finally done. Uh, Sophie, who have you brought on as our guest today?
Sophie: Today in the Moboto mic, we are so excited to have the opportunity to talk to Brian Covey.
Brian brings a wealth of experience as a seasoned leader in the mortgage industry, having worked with big name companies such as Wells Fargo, Movement Mortgage and Loan Depot. Before his career in the real estate industry, Brian was a professional soccer player. Currently, Brian is the [00:01:00] executive vice president of strategy and development at Revolution Mortgage.
In addition to his corporate role, Brian is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author. Welcome to the mic, Brian.
Brian: Awesome. Thank you guys. Excited to be with you today.
Sophie: To kick us off, Brian, um, how did you go from being a professional soccer player to the EVP of strategy and development at Revolution Mortgage? Can you sort of walk us through your career journey?
I know it’s a big question. You’ve probably answered a bunch of times, but let’s just start there.
Brian: Well, I’d love to tell you that it didn’t have its challenges and it was just super easy and all these. things, but 22 years, there’s been a lot of ups and downs. And, you know, one of the highlights for me, I look back as our first two kids were born in 07 and 08, anybody that knows about the market then.
Uh, probably we’ll understand is not only did I lose my job, we were closing branches. We were worried about where we would end up and do we stay in this industry? Like, I mean, all the questions we have and you know, that was a pivotal point. And I share that one just so people have some framework of I’ve been through and probably seen a lot of [00:02:00] things and, and why, why I love this industry, but how I got into it is, is one of those very interesting stories.
I say it was definitely a God thing in the sense of. I’m playing soccer. I went back and got my coaching license and I promised my parents I’d finish my degree. So I come back and I’m finishing that in Memphis and I couldn’t get a job anywhere. Like no one would hire me. I had a lot of soccer on my resume, a lot of coaching, and I had really no other experiences because my whole life was traveling, even overseas, playing soccer.
And That doesn’t translate into the business world, apparently as much as I thought, but I did go to a career fair and I’ll never forget I went and one of the company’s Wells Fargo Financial, they’re a consumer finance basically help with like furniture financing, auto loans, debt consolidation, all this.
They said, we hire athletes. Well, that’s me. And they go, and we pay based on performance. I love that. That’s good too. And then the last thing for me was we train you. And I remember meeting my first manager, Ken Ford, shout out to him, actually taught me credit income assets. We underwrote our loans in house, [00:03:00] taught me things about making cold calls.
I mean, a hundred plus a day working the weekends. And I give that story to people because you gotta understand, like I’m working in a strip mall basically with a Chinese buffet, a pizza buffet, and I’m dressing up in a suit, you know, like playing the part. I don’t know what I’m doing for months, but training matters.
22 years, what I’ve been able to do is evolve and train. And consistently stay ahead. And after my seasons of, I went into just originating loans for several years, then I got recognized like all kinds of top producers. They go, Hey, you can produce loans, go be a manager. No idea what I was doing. Um, struggled with that for a while.
And then you start to learn, okay, I’m going to do that. Well, then they say, well, you can do this with more branches. Struggled with that one. And it was like, well, how do you hire people? Who are you looking for? Like, I had no idea what I was doing. But I look back and I had several mentors throughout my career.
And you mentioned I was at Wells for 13 years, uh, had a blast at movement, working with the guys there, learned a lot. And then Lone Depot was fantastic and learning [00:04:00] with the guys there. And I say all that to go, I learned something from each of them and they all had uniqueness and cultures and things that I learned and picked up.
And then now I’ve taken that into where I’m at with revolution mortgage. And it’s been a journey. I was at 22 years. I’ve seen a lot of markets, a lot of things, but throughout it all, I do believe mentors constantly learning and training, just being a student of the game. The last one would be, I built a lot of relationships and I tell everybody, when you do that, you’re not going to be worried about where’s your next lead, where’s your next referral.
And most people want to skip those steps and not understand at every season, every level, you’ve got to continually learn and raise your capacity.
Patrick: I love that. I think Ryan Serhan always says he also started in real estate like right in 2008. Like he was like, I started in New York City real estate and Lehman Brothers closed the next day.
And I was like, what did I get myself into? So, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of great careers were built through that adversity. Um, so from. Starting in [00:05:00] the mortgage industry from a career fair, two decades now in the mortgage industry, you haven’t looked to go anywhere else. You’ve just continued to build this career and mortgage.
So, I mean, is it sort of like fate that you sort of stumbled upon mortgage industry and just loved it so much? What’s kept you committed to this industry your entire career versus looking to take those skills elsewhere, going into a different industry or something like that?
Brian: Yeah. Great question. I was actually talking to somebody this week, um, one of my coaching clients, somebody that I work with and help them, um, And, and my dream job was really to be like Jerry Maguire sports.
I want to be a sports agent. And I was like, man, I’m going to go do this. And I knew somebody and I looked at that, but again, you know, they wouldn’t hire someone with, with no skills and some of that. And I had a mentor years ago said to me, it’s like, you know what, Brian, you could take that same approach.
Cause he’d asked me like, what was your dream job when you were a kid or like through college? Like, what did you want to do? And I was like, well, I love sports. I got to play pro ball, but like, I always want to stay connected. Like I understand athletes and understand coaches. He said, well, how could you approach the mortgage business as that type of [00:06:00] sports agent?
I thought, I don’t know. And I started to rethink what I’ve done and what’s kept me in it is after producing and moving out of that season for a while, really my job has been around attracting training and making sure we have the best talent on our team because we all know the best teams win the championships.
And so I shifted and had to go back and learn over the last seven or eight years. How do you attract people? And that’s everything from building your personal brand, what your processes are, your structure, and then you got to move into once they’re on your team, like how do you onboard, how do you train?
How do you develop people? I believe holistically, not just if you’re an agent in real estate or a mortgage professional, we have a life outside of this. And so I started to approach my whole role and career is, well, how would I approach it if I was a sports agent? Well, I would look for the best people.
Where would I find them? How would I track the right ones? I had to get clear on my beliefs and who I was and my value and all that. And that has led me through what’s kept me in it. I’ll tell you is there’s just always somebody that I look and go, I was where they are [00:07:00] five, 10, 15 years ago. And I can relate.
And I know how many people helped me and extended the olive branch and mentors. And I go, I can be that person for so many people. And it’s what many days, like the tough days when you’re like, you know, this is not going like I thought, or you just have a bad month, whatever happens there. And I go, you know what?
There’s somebody that’s counting on me or somebody that I can coach, mentor, and help that I can help them move forward. And so that’s, what’s kept me in it is look, I could go do that in sports. I could go do that in another industry, but, but I do know mortgages pretty well and I enjoy it. I can relate.
And I often think, you know, part of that is, you know, God will put you in those situations and go, Hey, I’m going to give you all these experiences and all of these life lessons. Now it’s your job to be able to pass them on. And that’s, what’s kept me in it is. That part is, is what fuels me and with a family and everything I can relate to people going through this.
Patrick: Totally. I think I can relate to a lot of that too. As I got my career start as a sports journalist before I eventually covered New York City politics and Metro [00:08:00] News and then eventually real estate. And it is just like I wanted to. Cover the New York Rangers. I wanted to be like, I was talking to Sophie about this earlier.
I want to be a sports broadcaster on ESPN and that’s so far away from what I’m doing now. But my approach hasn’t really changed, right? Of like finding the interesting story, finding the most interesting person to talk to, learning from those people. So it is, it is sort of an interesting parallel.
Sophie: Right.
So in what you were just saying, I noticed a lot of parallels between Being an athlete and being a successful professional in the mortgage space. Can you pinpoint maybe a specific lesson or something that happened while you’re an athlete where you learned a lesson and you translate it to your career as a professional in the mortgage space today?
Brian: Oh, great question. Yes. So a lot, a lot of stories, but I’ll share one, one of my favorite coaches. Um, Richard boot and he was from Poland, played on the Polish national team and all this. And he took me through my career and really kind of under his wing is an early 12 or 13. I think is when he came in and started coaching us and he was a [00:09:00] goalkeeper.
And at that time I was a field player, but also I transitioned. I was doing some in the goal and I didn’t really know like, well, which direction do I want to go? And he saw something in me. It was like, Hey, I want to work with you on this goalkeeper thing. And sure enough, not even a year later, I was picked up on the U 15 national team and I started having some success and I started seeing all this.
The story I think about is the summers that we would have, that we would literally train in a hundred degree weather. We would run with parachutes on our back. We would dive over trash cans. We would do these crazy drills, like somersaulting and diving and like so unconventional, but there was always a method to the madness.
I say it’s like we were doing things other people wouldn’t do. And we also got results that other people wouldn’t get. And I’m like, Well, I mean, if this is working and I’m having some success, well, I’m going to keep doing the training in like somersaults and diving over trash cans and like, you know, jumping over people.
Like it was, it was training. Let’s just say most people were not doing at that time. And I share all that story because for each of us, all it takes is one person that believes in you. [00:10:00] All it takes is one person. That’s going to push you outside your comfort zone. And all it takes for each of us is, is a decision to commit to the pain I’m going through the, what we call sacrifices.
Some of us, it’s actually going to have a better payoff than what I’m giving up. And today that that’s it, like building teams, my job as a leader. And oftentimes is to get people to believe. What I’m asking you to do is going to be worth the time, the money, the energy and effort, the mindset shift, the things that I’m going to say, we need to change this in order to get that result.
You’ve told me you wanted and to get people to believe in that just takes one person. And I’ve seen it enough in my life. I could go through other coaches that have helped, but, um, but Richard was one of those that, uh, Just stayed with me throughout my career. And I remember that had I not had him, that one leader, that one coach, it’s all you need.
You know, sometimes we look for like, Oh, I need all these coaches and I need, you know, all these things to be successful. It could be one [00:11:00] decision, one coach, one change in your life today. That’s the catalyst for the rest of your business. And so that’s, that’s what I look at. And that’s what I share with people is.
I’ve seen it in my business. I’ve seen it even as a father now of, you know, my wife and I, we’ve got three kids and I look and go, it could just be one decision, one change that moves you forward.
Patrick: Awesome. Yeah. I love that. So Revolution Mortgage, let’s talk a little bit about what y’all are working on right now from a, maybe a little bit of an outsider’s perspective, right?
We do work with mortgage companies quite a bit and are obviously a residential real estate company. So we’re very aware of the market. It seems like. Maybe an odd time to pursue aggressive expansion, right? Uh, you don’t have maybe the loan volume you would have. You don’t have a lot of people refinancing with mortgage rates so high.
The common wisdom would be to maybe hunker down. Real estate is cyclical. We’ll see. See another boom cycle. Eventually let’s just shore up our base and make sure we’re okay. You’re saying screw that I’m going out and expanding, right. We’re pursuing this really aggressive expansion. Talk us through that timing and the thought process [00:12:00] behind that.
Maybe when everybody else is hunkering down and you’re saying we’re going to go out and grow.
Brian: Yeah, well, revolution mortgage was started almost seven years ago. And you look at, you know, when that started, we’ve had some good years, right? I mean, obviously during the COVID years. We were all printing money and there was refinances galore and I think that probably helped get the company from startup to where we are as we’re really moving to that next growth cycle.
And what we’ve said is our vision is we want to have a small boutique feel. We want to be very tech innovative in the sense of we want to provide the best technology to our customers so They have a great experience, right? From the first time they apply online, call a loan officer, want that to look and feel great.
And internally, we want to make sure that our loan officers have all the products, programs, transparency to pricing, all of these in the model has been built around a true almost franchise in the sense of everybody’s running their own P and L. And we don’t go after a market. We go after great people with entrepreneur mindsets.
They believe that having control of their process and their branch and the decisions they make. We’ll provide a better [00:13:00] experience and we work with them and we’ve got department leaders. So it’s all internally, everything from underwriting, processing, closing, marketing, compliance, uh, all of that. We’ve got web developers and everybody, it’s all internal, which again, I believe that’s the collaborative team approach, but where we are right now is we’re actually up where, you know, the market is down again, another 30 percent depending on your market year over year, we’re actually up that opposite number.
We’re up over 30 percent year over year. Okay. But I will tell you it is strictly because attracting the right people. We’ve got a fresh brand. We’ve got a fresh concept to it. And I think we’re attracting people that are going, man, I’ve worked in this corporate environment. I’ve worked with all these layers of people.
I’ve worked where I don’t feel like I’m anything but a number. And we’ve been able to get very clear on our avatar, which is that entrepreneurial mindset. Somebody that wants to build their own business just happens to be in mortgage. And people that can attract, retain, train, and they want to be part of a community in a small enough company that we’re not chasing the top 10, top 20.
We’ve [00:14:00] got a vision of 150 leaders doing around 10 to 15 billion a year, and we believe we can do that at scale and deliver excellence and be elite is one of the words we use all the time. And we talk about this a lot is everybody does the right thing. We continually develop them. We give people growth opportunities.
There really should be no reason they look to go outside of our organization, and we’re able to help grow their career. And it could be a place that they, not just say they’re going to retire, but they could retire here.
Sophie: some LinkedIn research on you, and I saw that you were a certified mortgage advisor.
What are some common misconceptions people have about real estate? And what are some common tidbits or tips you find yourself advising people on and a more individual level?
Brian: Great question. So if so, that certified mortgage advisor is a thing we. Bring to our team as well. And I always say the leader goes first.
And so I did that several years ago and said, Hey guys, look, even though I’m not originating anymore, I’m going to do this. And I believe there’s value in constantly learning. And I [00:15:00] think there is some credibility as well. And so just to kind of preface, like I did that, we’d have it. And what I see today, the biggest misconceptions still, we will see things like you need 20 percent down.
You need a 700 credit score, you need income that you can actually even document, right? Like that, that your W2 or you put everything on your tax returns and all of that. Look, there are loan programs today that we all know that don’t require any money down a USDA loan, VA loan, we have down payment assistance.
So if down payment is the issue, you should talk to a mortgage professional to go through that with you and say, if that’s your hurdle, let’s figure out how we get a game plan or a program that fits your needs. And it’s not a one size fits all. All I say is this isn’t going to fix everything for you, but if that’s your concern, that conversation could help you alleviate.
You getting bad information on Tik Tok or somewhere on social media and going, I still see people that unfortunately have a large fan base, follower base, whatever you call it. And they’re saying, yeah, you need 20 percent down. Not [00:16:00] true. Not true. The second one I would tell you that we’ve looked at is when people are talking about credit scores is we all know, especially government loans and there’s other programs out there, even conventional, you don’t have to have a 700 FICO.
And people are so worried about You know, my credit score is not where it is and they pull credit karma or somewhere work with a mortgage professional, make sure they pull your credit and let’s walk you through where you are. And if we need to do anything to raise that score, to either improve your rate or to get you qualified, let us be proactive instead of sitting on the sideline going.
Well, I just, I don’t have good enough credit because that’s what you think. Let’s get you the right answers. And your mortgage credit score is going to differ from other credit scores you pull. So another myth, make sure you work with someone that’s going to actually pull the right credit score. And from the right agencies there, the last one, this has been new lately.
Uh, we talk about what in our world, we call them non QM loans, basically non qualified mortgages. They can cover people that are self employed, can’t document certain types of income that they come in. It may be an investor [00:17:00] that wants to come in today. It could be a renovation loan that you’re an investor and you’re like, look, I just can’t document that.
What’s beautiful today is there are programs and investors out there that we work with. And they will allow you to actually qualify using not your tax returns. You can use business tax returns. You could use cashflow basis. You could use assets to qualify. Like I could go on and on that I use those as, those are the three main buckets that always say, if you attack credit income and assets there, then what you’ll find is there’s a program for you today that you might qualify for.
You didn’t know. Or we need to get you prepared for that. And there’s some things that we can help you adjust and get you ready. We just launched, just kind of put a plug in. We just launched an in house non QM. We brought all the products that we were using most of the time in house, which gives us more control, better service.
And that just tells you the business is growing. And so we’re seeing more of that. I had an investor friend. I got to tell a story. So people understand what we’re talking about. Yeah, for sure. They wanted to [00:18:00] buy a property. And the way they were able to qualify was we pulled their credit report. We went through everything, but the cashflow basis, what they were going to rent that home for exceeded what the mortgage payment was going to be.
And that was really the fundamentals on how they would qualify for a DSCR loan. And what’s phenomenal about that is if you’re looking to get in today and you want to add your real estate portfolio, but you’re like, man, I just don’t have enough. I can’t qualify like all these talk to us. There are programs and too many myths out there that are keeping people out and on the sideline that I think that’s, what’s hurting our market today is it’s probably why people aren’t listening because they don’t know where to go.
And you got people renting that don’t know they could buy. And it’s our job to educate them.
Patrick: There’s a, I bought my first home eight months ago now. And it is so much like I’ve worked in real estate for 10 years. And I was still scared of the mortgage process, right? Like until I talked to my loan officer and my real estate agent.
And they were like, this is going to be so easy, dude. Like, you’re going to be fine. Just get us these like four things [00:19:00] and we do the rest. And we’re going to send you updates. And just like, and like, it really is like truly amazing how much a really great law officer, a really great man, Real estate agent makes a difference.
We talked, we touched a little bit on it, a little bit of the innovation that’s happened in the mortgage industry. In real estate, the biggest innovation has been like getting real estate on the internet. And that has really mostly been it. There hasn’t been a ton of innovation to the space. It does feel like, uh, maybe a lot of innovation has passed us over in the last couple of years.
See new different types of things. What do you see as the biggest opportunity for innovation within the mortgage space specifically?
Brian: Good question. I’ll tag it from a couple of fronts. One, I think our industry needs to really get our arms around and figure this out is it’s too expensive to get a mortgage.
It just, there’s too many ancillary services, too many hands in the pot. And with the amount of technology that exists today, that you can automate and read W 2s, read tax returns, read a verification of employment. You know, you can read, um, insurance, right. And homeowners. We’ve got to [00:20:00] find a way that we implement this at scale.
And that’s going to require, you know, the fannies and the Freddy’s and the Jenny’s and everybody to get on the same page with lenders and go, how do we start to eliminate a lot of these costs that we know we don’t need? And even right now we’re battling how expensive it is to truly get tri merge and credit reports.
And some of that’s transitioning. We need to attack that as an industry and we’re lobbying for that as well at the MBA is how do we reduce the cost to get a mortgage? If you were to look at a settlement statement there and you go to closing, you go, there are all these fees from all these different people.
Are they required? Do we really have to have them today? So I’d say that’s, that’s something that’s going to be ongoing. Now in the mortgage process, what I’ve seen technology wise is we need to streamline things, right? So we, we require people to do a lot of these. So it would kind of be a compliment to that, but their technology that exists today, that we have people that are reviewing documents or doing tasks.
That we’ve started to roll out things like initial closing disclosure that is now automated in our world. [00:21:00] It’s very much an AI type feature, and that should be set up to one, catch any errors that may be the loan officer process or someone input. Cause that’s important. We don’t want those. And then two, it should streamline the process.
So you don’t have a person that has to go in and do a task that really is task based. And so we’re looking at all of those. We’re looking at those in the processing, uh, responsibilities. Underwriting, I believe, will be one that we can continue to make strides. I mean, today, we’ve got everything from they call like day one certainty to running dual AUS.
How do you give an underwriter a file and they don’t have to go through every single document? Could some of that already have been reviewed by technology? We believe it can. And then you have them check that move forward and review the key items and the important things. I think that’s there. Let’s fast forward into sales.
Look, I think sales is going to have a dramatic overhaul and there’s already companies we’re working with. Some of them now is how do you get in and automate things from your CRM to things like social media and how you’re omnipresent across all channels. [00:22:00] You’re where people are in that direct to consumer, but also work in your referral base is the only way to grow your sales in the past was to go out face to face, handshake, go to lunches, coffees, whatever.
Today we know that world is drastically changed. You know, you can get leads on social media. I know people that a hundred percent almost. Is all they do, they go on social, they provide great information, education, and they work those leads and they go direct to consumer and they do that. So I think that will need to continually improve because people don’t understand it.
They’re LOs. They’re not willing to invest in it. So some of that’s a little costly. We need to work on that. And then the last one is they don’t even know what the ROI is like. They don’t even like, what am I signing up for and what do I get? And so that’s what I see is some of the technology. And the last one I’ll leave you with is a vision.
I know Anthony Shea, which was chairman, CEO at Lone Depot. I loved this. I think this will continue. Is I do think there’s going to be bundling of services at some point. Someone’s really going to figure this out where title insurance, mortgage, real estate, all of the functions [00:23:00] together can come together and they can be a low cost in house provider.
And I know some people are dabbling in it and figuring it out. But at some point, I do think we’re not far away from that where someone cracks the code and they’re able to offer it and have such a competitive advantage that they’re able to pick up market share.
Sophie: You mentioned earlier that there are a lot of hands in the pot.
This podcast is for people who are interested in either making a career in real estate or just curious about the people who have careers in real estate. What do you believe are the most important qualities of someone who is in the mortgage profession today. Like what is the MO of someone who’s a mortgage professional and how do you become a successful one?
Brian: Oh, I love that one. Yeah. I would tell you today you can’t outwork hard work. Just straight up people that don’t want to work and think this is not a nine to five and they’re trying to break free and have this just absolute freedom that comes later. That comes after you’ve built your business. That’s come after you’ve learned the mortgage process [00:24:00] that comes after you’ve actually built your business and your career.
If you’re not willing to work hard in the early years, I can tell you, you’re going to string along and have decades of pain, decades of frustration and thinking, well, I just signed up for this thing because, you know, I saw it on Instagram and I can make, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate or mortgage.
And the truth is, yes, you can, but working hard would be number one. Um, number two, closely behind it, almost the same is I say our, our business has to be based on integrity. And people that come into our business, there are no shortcuts to this. Uh, we just had a branch and a company that just got hit for fraud.
That happens still far too often from customers, but also people in the business that you’re going to give up your license, potentially go to jail, pay fines. Like it is not worth it. So if that’s not your jam, you want to go do something a little bit more free. Don’t come into the mortgage space. Uh, we are regulated and that’s there.
The last one I’ll give you is just like sports. The best athletes I found through every different level I played [00:25:00] were coachable, meaning whatever role you start in, you’re now starting to try out and perform potentially for that next role. You might come in as a loan officer assistant. You might come in as somebody that’s just helping with social media with a loan officer.
You might come in on the operation side. You might come in on the compliance. You might. Wherever you can come in, excel at that role, be coachable to learn the skills of soft skills and also the hard skills of what you’re actually doing in that role and be willing to do more than you’re asked for. What I found in a mentor shared this is, Brian, when you’re willing to do more than you’re asked of today in your current role.
Eventually, somebody is going to pay you more than what your role is at that point. And that always just stuck with me is like, and the people that I see successful, they’re just willing to do whatever it takes along the way. And they put in the work and they stay consistent. They have high integrity. And so people want to work with them.
And when you do that, look, I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. I’m not saying all the seasons are going to be the same, but just like in sports. There’s great seasons and there’s [00:26:00] seasons where, you know, you’re not winning, but you’re learning lessons that then you can impart and actually do that. So that’s, that’s what great loan officer is doing today.
And like the CMA to me, that’s the coachability that’s going and learning and always being a student of this game.
Patrick: Yeah. I love that. Also that, that just sort of like, no matter what at all costs mentality, I’m a voter, one of our, our. Company’s core values is there’s always a way, and it’s, it’s really true, right?
Is that like, there’s always a way to get to that goal. There’s always a way to work there and, uh, it’s, uh, it’s cool to see other folks talking about that. So you’re not just a mortgage professional. You have a blog, a book, a podcast, a website, social media, YouTube. You contribute to Forbes Entrepreneur Housing Wire Today, parenting.
You are in a lot of different places. How does all this content augment your business?
Brian: So this is a strategy most people miss. I will tell you is, is a lot of people kind of compartmentalize this stuff and go, I’m going to write a book over here. Well, how does that integrate into your business? How does that provide leads for you?
How does that generate revenue for you? I’m going to [00:27:00] start a podcast. My question is always great. Like who’s the audience? How does that integrate into your revenue strategies? How does that get you more leads? Like, I’m always thinking everything that you just mentioned there, you know, I go through that Patrick and I go, the podcast feeds leads.
The podcast adds value to realtors and loan officers. The book that I wrote that adds value and is something I can give away to people and separates me from the pack and even the articles and things speaking on stages and all that. What you’re doing is you’re building a personal brand. You’re allowing people to get to know you.
And what I have found as a direct result is by going all in on those and showing up where people show up that I want to work with, I want to do business with is they will lean in and actually reach out to me. And so it’s this law of attraction. In many ways, you become an attractive leader. And I’ve always said, like, I did not enjoy the cold calls.
Like, I’ve done that a lot in my career. It just felt very disingenuous. And like, you’re kind of faking through it in a sense of like, you don’t even know this person, but you’re, you’re trying to pitch them on, you know, meeting with you or joining your company, whatever. Yeah. And I remember [00:28:00] making the shift of like, wouldn’t it be great when I called people, they knew a little bit about who I was, what I stood for, what I believed they had a vibe about what I was doing and all this.
And there are then people that would reach out to me, how cool would that be if people reached out to you and they go, Hey, I know what you do. I would love to have a conversation with you. And that was the model that I’ve been building. It’s been a good seven years, but I would tell you, like, even at revolution, a year and a half, we’ve been able to add substantial branches, substantial volume.
Uh, just this year, we’ve added 17 branches through April. And I look and go many of them for me that I’m involved with. We’re relationships and some of them started online. I never met them until they came and visited our corporate office and headquarters. So it tells you social works if you do it right.
Sophie: So it’s like building your professional brand is an extension of your corporate job at revolution mortgage.
Brian: 1000%. I always say this is the analogy. So if you were able to get an opportunity to speak somewhere, let’s say I’m a loan officer and I’m going to speak in front of a group of realtors. Maybe you get lucky and you have 20 50 let’s even say a [00:29:00] hundred.
I can go out on social now. Post something relevant and have enough views and impressions and all the things we have there to get in the thousands on a daily basis. So would you rather be playing in front of 20 or 50 or a hundred baby? Or do you want to play in front of a thousand people and have more opportunities?
The answer was easy for me is I want more eyeballs, more people to understand where I am. And so that’s why I lean into that so much as the more eyeballs, the more people that get to know you, they know, like, and trust you more opportunities, more conversations you have. And to me. That’s how you win today is you can’t be a secret agent out there and think you’re going to grow your business.
Sophie: All right. One last question for you before we do our little wrap up. You’re on a podcast right now. You have your own podcast. It’s called finding your competitive edge. Just a chance here for you to plug your podcast and also tell us where the name came from and how it applies and relates to your job and mortgage.
Brian: Love it. Well, this started. Right before COVID and I had this wild idea of, I didn’t see mortgage leaders out there with [00:30:00] podcasts. A couple of my friends had them, but more in the coaching space and some of that. And I thought, wouldn’t it be cool to take all these conversations I was having with very, very smart, uh, successful people in mortgage real estate, but some were not at all.
And I would always find myself sharing these conversations with other people. And they’re like, man, That’s great. I’d love to hear more. So we birthed the show and at first, you know, Ed, my let’s one of my favorite folks out there. Love his show. And I’m part of the RTA syndicate and been a mentor to me and I go, I’m going to name it like Ed did in the Brian Covey show.
Well, no one knows who I am at that scale. Like that’s just, it’s not going to work. Um, so a couple of years into it, I realized, well, show’s not really about me. It’s about my guests and their genius and what they share and what they bring and all these things. So, I look back as to what, what’s been different for me?
What have I seen in successful people? What were the guests that I brought on? And all of them, I say, had a competitive edge, meaning they were competitive in their life in certain areas. And it was that edge for them that made them unique and [00:31:00] different there. If you were to study them, follow them, they had a competitive edge that usually came from their childhood or somewhere in their life.
They’ve made a decision. All these things. And so we said, finding your competitive edge. And the goal of the show is not only to help the listeners find their competitive edge, but on the show, the guests, we want to highlight and showcase, this is their competitive edge. You may relate to it. This is how they found it.
This is how they use that in the service of others. And this is how it’s helped them be successful in life, business, and all these areas. And yeah, definitely check it out. We’re nearing 150 episodes and we’ve had some phenomenal people. Uh, you mentioned Ryan Serhant earlier, Ryan was one of our guests at one point and We’ve had guests like that, that I go, how did I get that person on my show?
Um, but you do, you ask and you figure it out.
Sophie: All right. Well, I’m definitely going to tune in. Thank you for that.
Patrick: I love it. Uh, something we’d like to play here on the Movoto mic is a little game called let’s get real. Where we ask you three rapid fire questions. You know, don’t think just first thing that comes to mind, we’ll jump right in.
[00:32:00] Who’s been your favorite podcast had on your show?
Brian: Okay. I’m going to go with Dave Meltzer.
Sophie: All right. You can have dinner with one person dead or alive. Who’s it going to be?
Brian: My wife. Love it.
Patrick: That’s very sweet. That was an easy one. Yeah. Uh, I would definitely have also said that to my wife who’s in the next room.
Um, uh,
Brian: favorite soccer team. Oh man. Uh, it’s Nashville Soccer Club’s my team here, but I grew up a Man United fan, so I’ll pick from both leagues.
Patrick: I love it. Very diplomatic.
Sophie: Thank you, Brian, for coming on.
Patrick: Brian, it’s been great. Appreciate it.
Brian: Awesome. Thank you guys.
