Josh Mettle’s 5 Disciplines of Freedom

The mortgage industry is challenging for most lenders and loan officers today. Interest rates have increased rapidly, housing markets have low inventory and everyone is experiencing pricing compression. Quicken Loans has become the number one lender after beating out Wells Fargo last quarter. And now Amazon has announced they are entering the mortgage space, and there are more venture capital funds flowing into mortgage tech daily. All of this is going to compress the time it takes to complete a loan and drive down margins.

Meanwhile, despite the lending industry being down overall right now, Josh Mettle’s team is generating 100% year-over-year growth and 100% month-over-month growth. This year, they are on goal to close over 1,500 loans doing over $500M in total production. It’s almost as if their business is shielded from the trends. How are they doing it?

Here are the 5 disciplines of freedom that Josh and his team are using to break free of the marketing challenges and to experience hockey stick growth.

#1 Wake up early and have enough time to charge your soul, your body and your mind.

“You’ve got to prepare yourself mentally, emotionally and physically to go after every opportunity and do it consistently all day, every day. I can work 14 hours a day, 5 days a week, be full of energy and feel phenomenal, and have a great time,” Josh says.

This is not just important, it’s critical, because we’re entering a new phase of originator… the “Originator 2020”. “This isn't somebody who can sit back and be reactive, and quote rates from a rate sheet,” he says. “This is someone who has to be sharp, has to be focused, has to be able to see opportunities and help partners capitalize on those opportunities.”

For Josh, that means meditating every morning for 15 minutes before any technology gets turned on. “I make a conscious decision to still my mind, to start in a place where I'm in complete control and I'm just grateful,” he explains. “I just feel good. The breath is coming through me. I'm feeling energized. My body feels good. I'm just here, and present, and in control. What I found is if I don't start that way, I have a much higher likelihood of getting overwhelmed. Maybe your ritual is prayer. Maybe it’s 15 minutes of yoga. Whatever it is, I would say control your mind first thing in the morning.”

“So do something for your body that will allow you to make it through a 10-, 12-, 14-hour day with energy. If you want to be able to hit three Realtor presentations in a row with energy… if you want to be able to take that last call with a client at 5 P.M. after your alarm clock went off at 4:00 A.M. and be able to give that client your all, you have got to be exercising. It doesn't matter what it is. My exercise of choice right now is Orangetheory. I'm in love with that. But you've got to be doing something for your body and that will stimulate your mind every morning.”

Note: Up until 2018, Josh adds, all of that was optional. From 2018 onward, it’s no longer optional. “If you're not of the mindset that the enemy is at the gate going after your business and your clients, if you’re not ready to be “Originator 2020”, you’re going to be challenged. And you’ll know you’re doing it right when you arrive at the office and you are the ‘cause’ of everything in your day, not the ‘effect’ of it.”

#2 When you arrive at the office, before you do anything else, conduct a minimum of two hours of uninterrupted outbound prospecting calls.

“As soon as we roll into the office, we have a quick 15-minute meeting. Then it's two hours of uninterrupted prospecting. There are no inbound phone calls that can get in during this period of time. Our secretary has got all phone calls captured. We are just doing outbound prospecting to new lead opportunities that came in through websites, Realtors, past client referrals coming in, calling past clients about annual mortgage reviews, calling Realtors we need to stay in front of. Our CRM system just cues us up with an endless amount of outbound stuff we need to be working on. You have got to do at least two hours a day if you want to be “Originator 2020.”

3. Do a Total Cost Analysis with a video for every customer.

“The reason behind that is we have to focus on moving from price to advice. The first thing I want to show to someone is that the lowest interest rate doesn't equal the lowest cost over the time horizon they expect to be in the home. That is especially true if you have a mortgage insurance scenario, or maybe you want to show them a 20-year versus a 30-year; but you have to shift your mindset to giving advice, not price.”

Note: A Total Cost Analysis is what families want. They want to communicate with you in a multi-channel way. To quote Stew Sweet, you have to offer an “Amazonesque” experience. To achieve that, you need to deliver a Mortgage Coach Total Cost Analysis via digital media to every borrower.

“You've got to add value,” Josh says. “You've got to educate. You've got to create clarity in the mind of the client, so when they find a home, boom. We're a go. You’ve got to provide clarity, and there's no better way to do that than with the TCA.”

4. Have a system for reaching out to past clients that is automated and also personalized.

You’ve got to be reinvigorating your past clients and staying in front of them in new and exciting ways. Every client should get an annual loan review and you should be converting at least 10% of your past customers per year. For more on Annual Mortgage Reviews read Making The Case For Annual Mortgage Reviews being Your #1 Priority in 2018.

5. Create an accountability process for prospecting and for gathering new people into your system and your ecosystem.

“We do what's called the five by five by five equals five challenge. Every Friday, I've got an Outlook reminder to send an email to the team. There are 17 originators now that email each other as a group and we set a goal such as adding five new people into our circle of influence.”

“We also touch our top five Realtors every week, whether it's face-to-face, a handwritten card, a really intimate Facebook message, a phone call. You cannot let a week go by where you're not touching your top Realtors.”

“Then, we want to add five people to Home Scout. We use this religiously to control the buyer’s search for homes, or to at least influence them so they're not getting snagged by people buying leads off of Zillow.”

Whatever your challenge is, Josh says, “make your goal a game or a community event. Have somebody lead that and then everyone else replies back and keeps it going.”

So those are Josh Mettle’s 5 disciplines of freedom. And they’re clearly succeeding as their results show. So, don’t be the ‘effect’ in your business. Be the ‘cause’. Start becoming the Originator 2020 now, because 2020’s coming fast.

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