What it Takes to Build a Top-Producing Mortgage & Loan Officer Team

Welcome back to Mortgage Daddies. Today, we are going to talk about what it takes to build and have a top producing team. Not everybody has a team. Not everybody who’s tried to build a team has had success. It’s hard. It’s a lot harder than I think I ever thought it would be when I started to build a team. Yeah, building a team just takes a lot of patience, a lot of, uh, making the wrong decision a few times, try to find the avatar that you’re really looking for that’s gonna fit into your team. Everybody’s gotta have a culture around that and everybody’s really gotta be bought into the same goal, right? I mean, we- we’ve talked about it here. If everybody’s not on the same page to get to the goal or to achieve that, and everybody has to fall into their role. And we’re gonna go over that in this episode. I’m Vernon. I run the top mortgage brokerage in Massachusetts with over 20 years of experience. I’m Craig. I’ve done $100 million consistently since my second full year in the business and I’m Massachusetts’s top mortgage broker. We’re the Mortgage Daddies with real advice, real stories and real results. Let’s get going. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that was tough for me or tough for anybody that’s a top producer and as you start to try to grow a team and add people, you almost gotta go backwards, you gotta slow things down because you’re used to operating at such a high level, the way you did things, you know, you- you knew what kind of angles to take or what corners you- you could cut off here to save time, but once you go to start to add a team, well, now you’ve gotta really slow things down, you’ve gotta teach somebody every little step, what exactly you want to do. And the big thing that I think is a struggle is to take that time to really set the right expectations and to train somebody on their specific task and let them do that task. It’s very difficult to not just jump in over it and just get it done quick cause you know you could do it in half the time. to get to that end goal, you’ve gotta take the time- Yeah. to slow it down. I think one of the big things I had to learn as a top producing loan officer, I saw you go through the same exact pains is you have to delegate, right? So you have to be able to release that, uh, that job duty to somebody else and know that it’s gonna take 2, 3 times as long for them to do it and figure it out, but the end goal is gonna speed up the entire process and it’s gonna take time off your plate to go out and build more relationships with business partners. And it’s really that trust factor, right? So when you really get, you know, the operation side really clicking on a high level and you have a high amount of trust, that’s where a team can go from a top producing loan officer you see em doing 40, 50, 75 million and now they can jump well over 100 million and beyond at that point, right? Cause now they know what the avatar is looking like. And as the team grows, you know, one of the fun facts and even as building a company almost goes into the same thing, this is just a big right? And that’s kinda how I look at it. Um, the people we’ve put in place from the operation or junior loan officers or loan officers on our team is now they can come in and help train the next person to do that job and they’re now delegating tasks to do to the other team members, so it kinda takes off. As you’re building a team and you’re the leader of the team, you have to trust in the people that you’ve already trained, put into place that they’re gonna be able to, uh, to retrain the next person the way that we do things, right? We’ve had some ups and downs. We’ve brought in number of team members, sales, operations and they just don’t see that we have to change with the times, right? We’re going through a big, big change right now at Milestone and I think as an industry, I think as a globally, and no matter what industry you’re in, is with AI and- and what that can do for us and I think that makes people feel very uncomfortable. Um, you know, I tell people all the time, get comfortable with the uncomfortable because if you’re not living in the uncomfortable, you’re not growing, you’re not moving, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna be significant or around in 3 months, 3 years, you’re definitely not gonna be around 5, right? If- if you don’t start adapting to some of the technology, um, and grow and there’s never going to be a reason to eliminate team members. They just have to now delegate not to a- another person, but to the AI and really redefine their role. Uh, you know, I get, I get shit for this all the time from my, uh, executive team all the way down to, you know, it doesn’t matter who in the company, they’re like, Vern, you blow shit up all the time. I’m like, Well, if we’re not changing, we’re stagnant and we’re gonna, we’re- we’re dinosaurs, right? Like we want to stay on the cutting edge and it’s super uncomfortable. I’m going through this with our ops team now, our sales team, our marketing team, everybody. I mean, wait til, you know, our accounting team finds out that I’m- I’m trying to build up some stuff to accelerate payroll all the way so it’s done almost immediately after a loan funds, but that’s where the industry, in my opinion, is going over the next 6 months. You know, some broker owners might be sitting out there watching this and saying, I’m not changing anything. Well, that’s good. Your loan officers are gonna come work at Milestone-because we’re gonna be able to pay them almost immediately after. We’re gonna have technology that’s speeding up their process and IThe- the important part is, is everybody thinks that their- their job is gonna go away. And I’m like, We have to redefine your job. So if you’re almost like a chameleon and you can change your colors and you can adapt to the- the changing market, you’re always gonna have a job, right? Because no matter what the technology does, the most important thing in your business, my business, I don’tJavier’s business who’s running, you know, uh, photos and videography business, is the relationship, right? At the end of the day, if we have the relationship with- with the consumer and with the business partners, the AI and the technology is only gonna make us that much better to do our jobs because it’s taking it out of people’s hands to- to make mistakes. There’s a lot less tasks to do, but now we can really concentrate on the high level items that make the biggest impact to the consumer and if we concentrate on that, I don’t think anybody’s going to necessarily lose their job or be eliminated-So if you’re a loan officer who did everything themselves till the point where it was disclosed and into processing, there’s a part of that that you have to give up. But also, like for me, it was more of the forward-facing with the consumer, so me staying in contact with the consumer, going over the preapproval, having somebody on the back end to do the follow-up, to get things structured, to get things over to, to, uh, processed and get it disclosed. You know, if you look at Milestone as a whole, and I’m gonna give out the recipe to everybody of what I’ve done in the past, what I know Craig’s done in the past is if you’re working at Verizon Wireless, you’re working at XYZ, you’re a bartender, you’re doing whatever else it is, I look atIt’s like, d- have you wor- you, you, you came over from the fire department. You’re dealing with the public every day, and guess what? You’re dealing with them at their worst possible moments in their lives, and you have to be compassionate, understanding, thoughtful about the current situation that you’re in, deescalate the entire situation. Just like the guy at Verizon, when I’d walk into him and I’m like, My phone hasn’t worked in 9 minutes. I’m ready to kill somebody. Like, You have to fix this or just get me a new one. And he’s like, That’ll take 2 hours. And I’m like, I, I will pay anything if it’s done in 45 minutes. And he’s like, Let me work on that for you, right? Like, that’s a guy who understands, and he’s, like, compassionate, and he’s thoughtful. He’s like, this phone must mean something to him because he’s ready to lose his mind. Um, but really, those are the- the- the top things that I’m looking for in operations people, right? Like, I want somebody like my mother, right? You want a motherly, uh, you know, type person who really cares about the transaction, about the consumer, wants to overexplain, understanding, and the most important thing, listen. Right? Like, a great operations person listens. A bad operations person just goes after you and says, I need this, this, and this by this date with no answer of why. Like if you can explain the why to people in any- in any business, you’re ahead of the game. Like, I just sat through a 45-minute meeting with- with somebody in my office and I explained my whys, and then it even made me realize, like, you know, maybe I’m over-overzealous here. Maybe I have to take my step back cause my whys aren’t that important, right? Like, maybe there’s a bigger why in that person’s life that’s making them do the things that they’re doing. that’s it on that. I could go on for that for- for days on end. Um, let me- let me hit you with one here. How do you define your leadership style? My leadership style, I would say, uh, is more of a lead by example type ofYou know, I don’t reallyI- I don’t think you’ll ever find somebody on my team that’ll work harder than me. So I always, like, believe that the leader should be the first one in the office, the last one to leave, the person who’s gonna work the hardest, the one who’s gonna set the bar. And, you know, I- I wouldn’t say that I’m the nicest person at the end of the day. I have compassion for people on my team and I g- like to let them, but also at the same time, if they mess up, uh, they’re gonna know that they messed up so that we can fix it because people have to be held accountable because it’s a really important transaction to me. And I think when I have people on my team that kind of have that same care between LOAs or processors, then you kind of can, like, take a deep breath and realize, all right, I can let this go because they really care and they’re gonna do what’s right, and they’re gonna work just as hard as I’m gonna work. Yeah. And that’s a great feeling. So, like, going through and finding the right people, the stress level that I used to have has come way down once you kind of had the right people because it’s hard. I mean, for me it was hard to try to, like, start to be a team leader or try to build a team because I was veryI don’t like to lose. I always want to win, and I always want to just get something done, and I’m impatient. But I think a lot of good salespeople are impatient. The consumer’s impatient. You have to be. You have to be impatient because at the end of the day, it’s important for somebody so you need to make sure that you have that drive and that edge to go. So, you know, as far as, like, how I manage people with that, obviously they’re, you know, they know that, but I feel like it works because I can be like a Sour Patch Kid, you know? You get, like, a little sweet, but also a little sour at the same time. Keep people on edge, but, uh, you know, at the end of the day, I think everybody understands that we’re just trying to get things done. For all our viewers that don’t know Craig Snow personally, he comes across as a lot of sour. But I promise you, when you get to know this man, there is way more sweet than sour. He wants you to believe there’s a lot of sour. I have heard numerous times he goes out of his way and he does things behindEverybody does not know behind the scenes he’s out there making sure people lives are better, helping people out. He does not ask for recognition. I think that’s one of the biggest attributes that you bring to the table as a leader at Milestone is, you hold people accountable, you need them to do their job, but at the end of the day you appreciate them for what they do, what they bring to your team- Yeah. and what they really bring to the company, so. I think you have to. I mean, IAt the end of the day, like, everybody’s important. You know? Yeah. And- and I appreciate a lot of whatThe hard work that people put into it and the time that they put into it and, you know, it’s just one of those things. I mean, I’ve alwaysWhat I did before isThe end of the day, I really just like to help people. Yeah. My wife alwaysI mean, you joke now I say no a lot, but, like, I’m always the type of person that’ll, like, if there’s a way that I can help in a situation- Yeah. I want to try to help and, you know, I try to show that to everybody so that they have that same type of, uh, you know, feeling with the consumers, which is huge. Yeah. And, you know, one of the things on here is leading by example versus managing behind a desk, right? I would say we don’t have to spend a lot of time on this. We do not have any management here that manages from behind a desk. Like, I will go get my- my- my hands dirty in the middle of a loan, it’s closing, preapproval, fall on the sword with that, you know, angry realtor who’s upset about something and- and, you know, explain them out and- and, you know, be compassionate for that. think that’s one of the bigger things about the culture that we’ve built here. You know, and it starts from-you and I and, and the CFO, the CTO, everybody down just understands. Th- the grenades are, like, some of those higher level problems, in my opinion. That’s what the leaders are there for, to take on. Yep. Typically, the leaders are the better people at handling the situation, diffusing the situation, making sure everybody kind of understands it. I don’t want to put my processor in that position to have that conversation, that uncomfortable conversation with a borrower. Or sometimes, you know, a borrower’s getting a little snippy about why this is being needed and, you know, they’re a little frustrated and it’s like, Okay, well, you know, I’m not gonna have them get yelled at by a consumer. I’m not gonna have my team yelled at by an agent. I’m gonna step in and have that conversation and squash everything, lay down the law in a nice, compassionate, fair way. But at the same time, you’re not gonna let somebodyYou can’t let people push your team around either. Because e- this business, it happens, right? You know, consumers sometimes are great and they’re awesome. Sometimes they’re difficult. Doesn’t matter how easy you make the process, they feel like they’re askyou’rethey’re getting asked for their left arm and it’s just basic stuff. So, sometimes it’s just that other level of a way you talk to people to kind of like let them know that this is how it needs to be or, You’re gonna have to go somewhere else- Go somewhere else. kind of a deal. You’re not a fit. Yeah. And, uh, you know, having that, I think, is something that we have very wellwe do very well. Some of the loan officers, we’re trying to teach them how to have those conver-You know, cause- It’s allowedYou’re allowed to say no to a loan- Yeah. yeah, it’s not gonna work out. Some people just aren’t going to be a fit. I’d rather stop the conversation, say, Listen, you’re better off going to XYZ, somewhere else. I’ve told loan officers, they come to me and they have these questions like, Listen, this is the situation with the deal. This is what the problems I’m having with the borrower. Like, they’re just not happy about anything. I’m like, Cut it. Cut it now. Just let it go. It’s not gonna get better. Tell the agent, Listen, you’re not a fit. L- send them somewhere else. Okay. It’s okay. They don’t listen. They wanna close the deal. The deal goes terribly bad and they come to me and they say, I should have listened to you. It’s like, Yes, we’ve been there before. Yeah. We’ve gone through those. It’s not worth it. I like this one for you. Personal growth versus team growth. How do you work on yourself to show up better for your team? I think, like, now for, for, like, my team, it’s, it’sHonestly, it’s getting better at being a leader. Like, that’s something that is a number one priority and goal of mine, where I’m not justWhen I first started, it wasI cared about me and my production and my, my business, and then it was my team and my team’s business. And now it’s not just my team’s business, it’s the company’s business. So it’s, you know, s- handling it and being able to kind of work for everybody. Still, you knowObviously I still produce and still have my own, business that we work on together. So, it’s tough to, like, completely wear that other hat. Yeah. But, you know, having that, uh, c- kind of being able to, like, put that leader ha- leadership hat on, or that management hat, and, uh, really, like, at a larger scale now. Like, we’rewe have a lot of people now. Yeah. So it’s like, that, that to me is what, like, my number one goal is, is to get better at that, get better at providing for our loan officers and our team and making a better process, a better company. And whether it’s in operations or whatever, like, all that stuff is very important to me. I want the whole thing to go smooth. So that’sYou know, to me, I care more about that now than my own personal production. Yeah. I mean, I think the one amazing thing that we’re gonna do, and I won’t let us not do this, isWe’re in the trenches, right? Like, I wanna know what isThe issues with processing, to the accounting, to the loan officer. Like, what issues are you having at any stage of the process? And the only way to really do that and still have a connection with the consumers and the business partners that we deal with is to have transactions, right? Like, I’ve taken a significant step back originating loans. Mm-hmm. But I’m still talking to a handful of consumers a day. Yeah, you’re still in it. Handful. Yeah. You have to be in it. And I, I feel like there’s too many leaders I’ve seen over my career that start to get to a certain point and they’re like, I’m not gonna originate. Or, You know what? I don’t need to run or be a part of my ops team because I’m not an ops guy and I have an ops leader. Uh, no. I wanna sit in on, like, 80% of those meetings. I’m not gonna make 100. I’m g- I wanna know what the issues that you guys are, areEspecially the higher issues, right? But if you don’t find the little issues as a leader, if you, if you don’t know where the little buttons are, the big buttons present themselves, right? They just show up and they- But the problem is, is those-punch you in the face, but you catch them early. when those big buttons come, they blow up. Yeah. So, like, for me, it’s I really like to kind of look at it from the other person’s side, like everything. Like, whether I’m working on an application that we’re, we’re rolling out and I’m looking at it as, Okay, for the consumer, is this the easiest, smoothest process for the consumer? For ops, is this the easiest, smoothest process for ops? Is there something that the loan officers are doing that’s making it harder on the ops? Is there something ops is doing that’re making it harder on the loan? Like, how can we make it easier for everybody as a whole? And when you can see both sides or all sides of it, for the loan officer side of it, like, I always try to look at it. Like, cause on the management side, it’s easy to make a decision about money or make a decision, Oh, we don’t need this, cause maybe you don’t need that or I don’t need that anymore. But affects a lot of people. But it may affect, you know, 15, 20 people. So trying to, like, slow things down and look at it from the other side, that’s important, I think, you know, for leaders that too many management people don’t. They forget what it’s like to be that guy or forget what it’s like to, you know, have that change or not, not to feel like they, you know, are getting enough. So it’s, it’s easy on the leadership at a higher level to just look over and be like, Oh, we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do that, we’re gonna change it. But to try to go back and look at it as, Okay, well, how is that gonna affect everybody else? And sometimes it’s more on the delivery of how you’re pre- how we- how I can present it to them to make it better versus, you know, if you just get up thereAnd this is something I’ve learned just from me doing it. You say something and then how it’s interpreted doesn’t always- It’s wild. It doesn’t, it’s not always how you mean it like, how you say it or how you and I talk and we’re like, Yeah, we’re gonna do this. All right, perfect. And you roll it out and then other people think it’s, like, something way different. We’re like, No, no, no, so- You just changed the world. The world’s flat- Yeah. like, all of a sudden. Really, like, as a leader trying to see it from all sides but then communicate and almost, like, overcommunicate what you’re trying to do and get that message out, I think is important so you have that full buy-in from everybody because peop- most people do not like change. Yeah. So it’s hard for them to understand it. They dislike change. Um, another topic we’re gonna talk about briefly, accountability without micromanaging, right? So, uh, from the top down since the day we started the company, I don’t really believe in vacation time, sick time. You’re sick, you need a mental health day? Just mail it in. Shoot a text to a couple people in the company. Mental health day, sick day, take the vacation. Um, but, you know, for you managing a large sales staff, I mean, you, there’s 60, 70 loan officers now at Milestone, growing exponentially, I think 5 or 6 last week were added. How do you keep the team on track without being overbearing? And let’s just talk about your specific sales team that you’re, you’re operating through your production right now cause I think that’s gonna be, you know, a lot of our viewers are concentrating on that piece of it, is how you keep everybody on track without seeming like you’re micromanaging. Yeah, I mean, it’s really having defined roles is very, very important so that you knowLike, if you run a team and it’s kind of like an up-for-grabs kind of a situation where, you know, a file comes in, it’s like, Oh, whoever can get it, that’s a recipe for disaster in my opinion. I’ve gone down that road. We’ve tried, we’ve tried every option here. Like, I get it butAnd I’ve tried it because you’re like, Oh, it’ll be better, it’ll be faster. And then, you know, that one person can take the file from front to back and, you know, you don’t have as many people in the pot. It’s a recipe for disaster because somebody is gonna work harder than somebody else, and then you’re gonna start to have animosity- Yeah. between the 2 people. So when we made it more of, like, a conveyor belt setup, it made it really easy to know, like, okayAnd, and this is where the team with changing things has to happen. Okay, we said it where LOA1 does this role, LOA2 does this role, LO does this role. Well, sometimes you gotta slide that scale a little bit because LOA1’s super backed up, so LOA2 has to take over a little bit of that. Or maybe LOA2 goes on vacation, so you, now you gotta feed in the gaps. So, when you run a team and you have it where it’s defined roles, but yet it’s semi-cross-trained, it helps because now it’s easy to pick up the slack on one side or to pass some of that work over to the other side. But also it’s very easy to, to see, like, where the problems are. Okay, what’s holding it up? If, if your role is to disclose the loan and we’re backed up in disclosing, well, then there’s a problem with that. Why? Why? Right? It’s not, if it was that one person did all these things, Oh, well, I couldn’t disclose that loan because I had these loans. No, no, no, this is your only job. Like, this is the expected time, so you set those kind of rules and expectations ahead of time. And to be honest, we’ve been very lucky because we have people that they care and they work as hard. Like, there’s not really, like, a punch clock here and i- it’s never been needed. Like, when I used to think about an office, it’s always like, all right, you know, how much time can you kill till the end of the day? Like, there’s nobody here, especially on operations side of things- No. cause that’s who, like, we deal with more on, on my team, that’s ever, like, looking at the clock or sayingLike, most of the time I’m like, Get the hell out of here. Like, You’ve beenIt’s 6:00, 7:00. You gotta go. Tomorrow’s another day. Yeah. And that’s, you know, that makes it easy. That’s the winning culture that you’ve been able to build over time by being compassionate- Yeah. caring about and, you know- Nobody wants to be the first person to leave. Like, I used to- Not on this team. even, like, way back at the old office. I remember, like, Eric and Jared and Kevin, like, I’d still be grinding at 8:00 cause I had so much to do and I had, had too much on my plate and I didn’t delegate to these guys. So they’re, they’re there, like, with nothing to do and they’re just sitting there, like, waiting for me- I don’t want you, I don’t wanna leave. to leave and I’m like, I just gotta, one more thing, one more thing, one more thing. But then eventually I figured out how to spread that love out a little bit, and now it’s, it’s a lot better quality of life for everybody. So one of the big things that you do that’s super unique, I believe, and almost industry-wide, and you haven’t seen this because you haven’t worked at a lot of places, but, uh, the- your ability to use tools, CRMs, dashboards, team meetings. I’m telling you from being around top producers and being friends with top producers for over the last 20 years, you are the best with implementing systems and structure. And people think that, you know, in order to run a big team, you have to have team meetings or pipeline meetings. There is none of that with you. I almost never have them. It’s wild, right? So, uh, you know, obviously some technology changed that, but technology hasn’t changed a lot in our industry. It’s going to, right, going forward. But up until today, the last 20 years, like it’s amazing to me how efficient your team operates- It’s all about efficiency. with almost no meetings and just the use of just the systems that you have in place. But you’ve been able to really maximize and cross train all of your people to understand what their roles are in those systems. Yeah. I mean, for me, since we started till now, systems and technology has always been something that I was always kind of like looking for, like what’s the next best thing? Because I realized how much timing. We didn’t have it when we started. Yeah. There was none. We had email, we had what else? We had paper. We had mostly paper apps. But it was like as it started to get busier and stuff, you get an online app, and then it’s like, Oh, well, is there a better online app? And then is there a better system? So like we were always changing the technology to get better. And that’s just from legitimately looking at it as if this can save me 30 minutes, even though it’s gonna take me maybe a couple of weeks to implement, and maybe it’s gonna take me a couple of weeks to, you know, a couple hours a day for a few, few weeks to figure it out, to get comfortable with the system, long term it’s gonna be a lot faster, right? And it’s gonna double your production. I made a change on my email system because it made me a lot faster long term. It took me a little bit to get used to it. So what happens is people who are fairly busy don’t want to make a change because they- it slows them down. But when you can look at it as, is this really gonna speed me up down the line? It may slow you down a little bit now. It might take you a couple weeks, because just like anything, you gotta build habits. So how I try to look at it in my team is we need to build the habit of what we’re gonna do on every single file so nothing ever gets missed, and I don’t need to have a meeting with you every week to- Yeah. or every day to tell you what to do. So we’re gonna have- build a habit, and you’re gonna do this every day, and you’re gonna do this every day. I’m gonna do this every day, and you’re gonna do this every day. And we have this system in place that can operate and make it so that it’s very easy to do, and this is exactly how you’re gonna do it, and you’re gonna do it, and I’m gonna do it. It just runs itself, and we just get used to that system, and it completely frees up so much time because there, there’s such a lack of efficiency in this business with so many loan officers, you know, that, that I see, that I talk to. They don’t have a good system. They don’t have organization. They don’t use the tools. They have the tools, maybe not as good as what we have, but they have tools and they don’t use them at all. They don’t use a calendar. They don’t use a calendar. They maybe have an Excel sheet that they say they update and they don’t update it. It’s like the, the systems are all there. You just have to spend a few minutes to get to know how to use it, and then it’s so much easier for you. Going forward, for forever. So much easier. Yeah. Because you’re not going backwards. People go backwards so much. I just want to go forward. I don’t want to go back. By that I mean I don’t want to look at the same loan twice. I don’t want to have to go and recalculate income, look at assets, look at documents to see if what I had in there from 3 months ago was actually accurate because I didn’t have any notes. That alone is a huge time saver. So that gets put into the process. That is a non-negotiable that has to happen on every file, because I don’t want to have to go back, because I used to go back over- Non-stop. and over and over. And it’s a huge time killer, as well as like on the weekends. Those are the times you’ll- you always get the questions at the worst possible times. Meaning like you’re not just sitting at your desk doing nothing. You’re out with your kids or you’re, you know, at a baseball game or whatever, and you get a question, Hey, can I do this on, you know, on an offer I want to do? Or an agent asks you and you’re likeIf you don’t have a good system, you can’t give an answer quickly. Yeah. Now you got to go drag your laptop out, and it’s, you know, it’s not efficient at all. Talk about celebrating wins and addressing issues directly. I think you do a great job with both of those things, especially addressing issues directly. Yeah. I mean, uh, issues directly, I really don’t like to let things sit too long with people cause then it becomes a bigger problem. But I like to, you know, try to handle things a lo- think this is something I try to get a little bit better at cause I don’t think I realized like, people get embarrassed. So like, I try not to address problems with somebody like, in front of everybody to a point unless it has to be. Unless it’s like, a team thing. But, you know, more on a one-on-one side of things, like behind a closed door so w- not everybody, you know, cause you don’t wanna kill somebody’s confidence. Yeah. That’s like, one thing that I’ve learned a lot. Cause I don’t, to me, it doesn’t bother me so it’s like, you and I can be like, we can go in front of everybody and be like, You’re an idiot. You just did this. Oh, yeah. Like, What the hell is wrong with you? And we just laugh about it. Not everybody ge- U- you know, and I’ve learned that with coaching now, too, with my kid stuff. Like, I c- can’t c- Like, that level of coaching that I wanna do or the level of, I can’t do that with everybody. So you have to learn your team’s personalities when th- and how they, you know, handle certain things. Like, there are certain people that I can say things to more in an open setting. There’s other people that it’s a better way to have it on a closed door. But also, it’s taking some time to recognize or even just shoot an email to somebody like, Hey, great job on this, or, you know, tell them in an open setting th- you know, that you did a really good job. People love that and I don’t think, you know, enough people do it. Yeah. And it doesn’t, it’s not hard. Or, you know, taking your team out for drinks or dinner or something to celebrate, you know, a hard month’s work. Like, they really appreciate stuff like that. Yeah, I feel like w- that’s almost slipped up a little bit over the last, like, 6 to 9 months. I feel like w- the volume has, you know, f- kinda flattened or just kinda, you know, dipped down, whatever it may be for your, for companies, uh, for the people watching. But it’s very important just to send flowers, take em out for cocktails. Uh, I think we do a pretty good job. But I feel like that’s a bucket that can never be amazing at, right? Like, even if you think you’re amazing- It just really helps with that culture. it can get a little bit better. Yeah. And I think that’s bu- The reason why people don’t wanna leave at 5 o’clock is cause they like hanging out and, you know, we have a culture of really a bunch of friends that work together. Yeah. Which is nice. Like, people don’t wanna leave right away at the end of the day. They, gonna finish what they need to do or, you know, no one’s gonna leave you hanging and it’s- I feel-it’s a tough business to be in if you don’t have that kinda support. I feel like our team in a wrap just really cares about every team member all the way down to, to business partner. And they never wanna let anybody down, right? Like, it’s, it’s like, you know, Kevin on disclosing. I’ve seen him here until like, 8 o’clock at night. I’m like, What are you still doing here? He’s like, I gotta get this last set of disclosures up. I’m like, No one’s looking at these disclosures at 9:30 at night- No. like, when they get it. He’s like, I don’t want it to sit there until tomorrow morning. That’s something you can’t teach. No. Like, you can’t make somebody have that mentality. But if you can find those people, you can teach them to do the other stuff. And for the record, operations people do not have to be superb athletes. You know, going back to the earlier statement in there. Operations people are a different beast. Earlier I was talking about looking at salespeople. When I look at salespeople, operations people are not typically A athletes, super co- They are, they have a little c- The, the great ones have a little competitive edge to them. They could’ve been, you know, play in athletics. But for the most part, for me- You don’t want, uh, yeah, in my opinion, you don’t want them to be super competitive- No. in that way because then they get aggress- Like, everything becomes a fight. We had one. It was, everything was a fight. Fight with the underwriters, fight with the underwriters, fight with the investors, fightSometimes you just spent 3 hours fighting something that you coulda gotten in 10 seconds. They already had it in their email. You just were trying to prove a point. Yeah. They already had it. Yeah. And, you know, s- my mom used to always say this but sometimes you catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar. Yeah. And, you know, that’s sometimes the, the better way to go about it. W- You know, on the op side or like, gotta call the borrower. Hey, I’m really sorry, you know. They, the underwriters give me a hard time on this, you know. I can try to fight em but it’s gonna maybe take a coupleDo you mind sending me this over? Oh, yeah. No problem. It’s how you just approach it- Yeah. how you say things to people. But if you call, you know, all angry, Hey, I need this, or, You didn’t send me the right documents. Like, whoa. People read off your energy and, like, having the right energy when you talk to somebody is very important. And if you can find that in operations, it’s a slam dunk. I think that was a, uh, a great episode. Thank you for the insight on that. And, uh, till next time. See you guys next time.