How a $60M Loan Officer Turns Financial Advisors Into a Referral Pillar with Dietrich Miklautsch

What's up Mortgage Coach community, Dietrich, welcome to a replay of that last call we did last week. Thanks Dave, appreciate you having me on as always. I really appreciate you, a super important topic. So I wanted to make sure that we captured some of what we've talked about in the first 30 minutes of the live call. For those of you who watched it live, you might be a little bit of a repeat here for a bit, but I wanna make sure that the industry understands the value of relationships with financial advisors. Realtors are important, and if you're a referral-based loan officer, you've gotta have financial advisors as one of your pillars. Now, Dietrich, who I'm gonna interview right now, is someone that's got a really substantial advisor pillar. It's not his only referral partner, he does have lots of realtors as well. A modern professional, he's the captain of the wealth team. Takes great care of his database because he has great relationships with realtors, financial advisors. So Dietrich, if you could just share a little bit about how you're doing so far this year, your volume, your market, and then we'll unpack how you're executing with advisors. Sure, thanks, Dave. Right now, year-to-date, I'm a little over 40 million on track for about 60 million this year. Normally, I do in between 50 to 100 million outside of COVID. In a couple years of COVID, I did 120, 130 million. A lot of that was enabled by the Mortgage Coach and ability to run through scenarios and convert and be prepared. So that was a big piece of that, being able to be prepared to handle the business when it comes in. Been doing this for almost 25 years and been working with financial advisors for a majority of that time. I really started to meet a couple of those advisors early on and see that that was an area that I enjoyed working with. I thought that I could add solid value to business partners and financial advisors, pillars that I really enjoyed developing and growing over the years. Well, congrats on the success. And getting business from advisors is near and dear to my heart. And for anyone that has followed the founding story of Mortgage Coach, I was a loan officer, I did a lot of volume, and main pillar was financial advisors. In fact, I had over 100 CPAs, advisors, insurance professionals that referred business to me annually, and I wrote a book called The Art of the Referral. Check it out, guys. You don't have to buy it on Amazon. It's like, just put it in AI or do a Google search. And it was all about how to get business from CPAs and financial planners at scale, make it a pillar. But Dietrich, I really applaud how you just integrated it into another pillar. What was your why? Like, why did you build this pillar and why are you still putting so much time and energy into it? Great question, Dave. I think when I started my career, I was looking for that unique selling proposition. That way that I can differentiate myself and create value for clients and what I enjoyed doing. I think a lot of what we all do on a daily basis in the mortgage business just depends on what we enjoy, what gives us energy and drives us forward. So it might be different things for different people. So for me, I really enjoyed the strategy and seeing how integrating mortgage into the overall financial plan could really connect the dots on overall process for the client and come full circle with the mortgage complementing that financial plan. I would get calls with clients and they're telling their advisor after they're in contract, oh, I gotta pull money out of here or do this. And I'm like, gosh, that just seems so reactive and backwards from what they're trying to accomplish in a long-term plan. So I really enjoy getting in front of the financial advisor as early as possible when I'm meeting new clients. And then for those that I'm working with already, I integrate them into that process, into the pre-approval process, making sure that they're aware of what's going on and get their feedback on, do we need to make adjustments on mortgage strategy based on where their plan is, where they are in life, how many years they have left before their retirement or if they're in retirement is the right combination. So collaborating with them, I really enjoy. And I think it really sets a professional stage for the client to add strong value from that wealth team. And so I would just say to anyone listening to this, going after this pillar of business and being successful at it makes you a better loan officer, will actually be better at the job you have. And in addition to the benefits of another referral partner and it also makes you more valuable to real estate agents. It makes you a better strategist and it creates more value. If you have financial planner relationships, that's gonna have value to agents. So vision, now how your value proposition to an advisor, how would you describe that? Like if you're talking to a new advisor or how do you position that? What does that sound like? And give us the ingredients of that. Yeah, so when I'm talking to a new advisor, I wanna make sure that they understand and see the stories that I had, how I've helped clients in the past. So they can really connect the dots on why it would be important to have a mortgage expert in their corner. And I find more and more, more than ever, advisors are really, really needing a go-to mortgage expert in their area and a lot of them experts or maybe they talk to somebody, but then that loan officer just didn't relationship them. So I like to show them some creative things that we can do and how those strategies can help their clients and add value to their clients. Help either with a new advisor, help that they have a new client. It helps more trust in that advisor upfront with them bringing in a piece for the full picture of the mortgage and the financial plan. So I work to help build trust initially with a new client of theirs. I will help keep assets under management when appropriate with the overall strategies versus collaborating with the advisor versus the client thinking that they need to sell assets that they may not need to, or may have a better solution for. So creating those strategies, whether it's a retiree, whether it's a first-time home buyer, whether it's someone that's trying to buy before they sell, whether somebody's talking about putting a low amount down versus a large amount down, whether somebody's trying to buy an investment property or a second home and trying to just put it all together. I'm looking to give those stories of how I help with a specific product or a strategy in order to show the client and the advisor that having me be a resource is of great value to them that they can go to for support. So I'm gonna say something that is bold, that's something I truly believe, is that every financial advisor in America is giving a disservice to their customers if they don't have a good strategic relationship with a mortgage coach like Dietrich, period. Not a loan officer, like they need to have a strategic partner, someone that understands the skills of liability management, someone that is dedicated to using the mortgage as a strategic planning instrument for a consumer and understands how to work with a financial advisor. And so if a financial advisor has a mortgage coach, and I'm sorry, I know I'm Mr. Mortgage Coach, but it is the best way to compliantly deliver price with advice. Like, I'm not aware of anything that's even close. With that said, I want to inspire everybody watching this that's a mortgage coach. It's like, go get those planners. They just don't know. They don't know what they don't know. You need to teach them what it means to be a mortgage coach. You need to have a conversation, and then you need to show them mortgage coaches as stories and case studies. So let's talk about that. How do you describe these stories? And then let's tell a story and talk about a story. That sounds great, Dave. Before I get into the story, I think it's questions I get in my area and my branch or other loan officers that I mentor or coach. It's like, hey, how do we get these financial advisors? How do we work them into the process? So a couple tactics. If you have a new application and you see that there's assets under management with companies, usually companies with a larger number of clients instead of the wealth banks are good contacts to go to because they don't have private banking relationships or their own avenues. Welcoming that integration. I just did it yesterday for clients. I was talking to them and part of the sale, they were asking about rates and fees and they were talking about a strategy of buying and selling later. And I said, well, do you have a financial advisor? And they're like, gosh, that's really on our list to do. And I'm like, well, I'm happy to recommend one. And I just worked it into my process. But if I see somebody that has an advisor already, I will just let the client know that, hey, it's part of my process to reach out to your advisor and touch base on the overall pre-approval strategy, show them what we've talked about, trade notes, see if there's anything to do. So I just assume that that's the next step and bring that into the client. And it really helps tee up connection. Send a message to the advisor saying, hey, met with Dietrich. He wants to talk to you about the plan and just review what we went over and make sure that we're thinking of everything that we need to. It allows me to organize and professional upfront and tee up that opportunity. And then I can open the door for those stories and other ways to help them. But I've created that relationship upfront. And then as the process goes, I update them just like I do another referral partner. I put them on a weekly update, just like I would the realtors and the clients. And by the end of that, the advisors don't see that ever. So it really shows impact for a new relationship to be able to foster. Other ways that you can get advisors, networking events that you're a part of and charities that you both share passion for or some alumni event, some alumni association. I get a lot of my partners from past clients and friends and other real estate partners just by asking, hey, who is your financial advisor? Do you rate them a nine or a 10? And if they say yes, then say, I'd love to work with more advisors in the area that I can really been able to help add value and be a resource for them. Could you make an introduction? So it might sound intimidating upfront, but I could tell you that if you ask, you will be surprised at how many meetings that you can tee up and how open some advisors are to those meetings. So first of all, Dietrich, those are just exceptional strategies. Help anybody execute on this. I would say that the way he's leveraging current customers, that is incredible. Like that is gonna be your most effective way to grow this channel. When I started back in the day, and by the way, August of 2019, this is my year this month in the business. And when I started in the business, my mentor was Mel Samick, mortgage broker, owner of Excalibur Mortgage. Thank you, Mel. And he brought me into the business. And first thing he did was he opened the yellow pages and he opened it to see for CPA. And this is a script. Hi, my name is Dave Savage with Excalibur Mortgage. We specialize in helping CPAs and their clients with their real estate financing needs. Do you ever have clients ask you about real estate financing or have questions about it? So some of them would say no. Most of them would say yes, and then we would drive a process. Now, I'm not giving you that script to tell you that you should be cold calling, but you could. And now with LinkedIn and social media and AI, and by the way, when I called financial planners, we specialize in helping financial planners and their clients. It was a niche. So I just wanna push the industry and push you, especially if you're a mortgage coach and you're watching this, those financial advisors, those CPAs, they need you. They're not serving their clients at the highest level if they're not getting a mortgage coach presentation showing them how to make better decisions. So let's get into a story and a strategy and a mortgage coach. Sounds good, Dave. The first strategy I have that I get a lot is the advisors come up to me. They are trying to solve a problem for somebody who move up buyer or retiree of how to buy before they sell. And the strategy around that of getting into a new home first and then selling after, and then maybe doing a recast or taking proceeds and replenishing the portfolio or adding to it with the overall strategy. So I'm gonna share my screen here. Okay, so this is an example of a downsize from a purchase of a new purchase of 1.6 and they have a house that's a little bit less in price. This one, they were just relocating to a different area but needed a strategy to do so. So in this example, we looked at, okay, they needed funds to get the cash to they needed to do that. They had probably about 150,000 of their own money. The rest they needed to solve for. And so what I suggested in order to qualify this is to a bridge strategy and in the whole process of deciding what they can do. Now, when I do this strategy, I will ask what other ways that we can access money to see what the most efficient way to do this. A lot of times they might have some assets under management that they could do a margin loan with with their advisor and then avoid selling positions or lower the amount of the bridge loan they need to reduce costs. Because a lot of these bridge loans are, the cost is directly tied to how big the loan is. So if we can come up with a strategy to show them, maybe there's funds there where they can lower the bridge loan, save them money. It's collaborating on ways to do this. In this case, they didn't have a brokerage account. They just have retirement and the cash of that 150. So what I did was I worked up a bridge loan to get them about 677 in this strategy and then use that other 150 to make up the difference for the total purchase that they need for the cash to close. So I would normally, I would go through what they could expect to pay upfront in that first loan scenario and then explain how the bridge process works on the right-hand column. Further, I would go into the payment breakdown, show them what to expect for the bridge loan, how much that's gonna cost them, be real direct on the strategy, but using the mortgage coach to relay that effectively and efficiently so that they can decide whether or not that they want to do this. Maybe they want to try to go contingent, but at least in our market in Seattle, they'll view a lot of times it's hard to do that. So the interest and calculating what they're gonna pay overall during that process until they sell, until the bridge is paid off and then go through the cost and break down of that. But then, like I said, this is where I would, if they had other funds to use, I would do another column and show them, hey, you could take a bigger bridge loan or we could take say half of it from their margin account if they had one and then show them another strategy of how the fees would drop on the bridge loan in that case. So I'm working on collaborative ways to show them how to save them money, but still get them into the overall strategy. So I see this a lot with clients. I will go through these strategies. I'll do this on a video call or in person versus sending this out and trying to explain it. I always want to set that meeting up and then do a screen share with them to review it. I find that's the most impactful way to get all the numbers, especially when we're doing something, buy and sell a lot of questions about what it looks like later. Some of the other options that I do in the same strategy is that maybe they have extra funds that they're gonna have left over. We would then look at, okay, does it make sense to do a recast and drop that payment of the 6839 that would be out there initially, or does it make sense to put that money back to the advisor and that's part of the strategy conversation that I can have with the advisor. Okay, we have $300,000 more to utilize, let's say. Does it make sense to put that back in the loan and drop it to 500,000, or does it make sense to invest that for their future? So that's something that I can show the advisor with this after I meet with the client and help decide what the best option is for them. Love it, love it. Couple of questions. So one, we've recently made some changes to the layout. How do you like the new looking feel of the platform? Yes, I really like some of the enhancements that Mortgage Coach has been working on. I like the single cost analysis that goes through a little more information. You can explain things a little more detail and that it looks like a loan estimate. So if you have somebody that's doing a comparison and they're trying to get that, it's gonna look and feel just like that loan estimate and it lessens the questions that end up coming up. I find that when I'm going through this Mortgage Coach in detail and having this strategy, when I send out the disclosures, there's little to no questions because we've already done it and gone through that upfront. One other item or one other enhancement that I really like, it's gonna be on the other presentation that I have is using the AI feature to create Mortgage Coach. I did that on the other presentation that I'm gonna show you guys. And it's just using the prompts to create a total cost analysis. And it was super easy. It took a few minutes. I created the Mortgage Coach and then you can make your adjustments if you had anything specific that you wanted to add in there. So if you haven't checked out those enhancements, definitely check that out. I thought that was a huge way to save time and create a solid strategy to be able to present to your clients. Yeah, in fact, I didn't know that the next one you're gonna show me was created with our AI feature. I do wanna call out before we pull up that next one. In the bottom right-hand corner, the borrower could ask any question and you as a loan officer are in the loop. So you know what they're asking. It's super important that you prompt it for the borrower because we've noticed that the loan officers that give the consumer a little heads up that, hey, you can ask any question and maybe give them a couple sample prompts that might be relevant to them. They have literally 10X more borrowers clicking on it and using it. And you don't want them using their own AI to ask questions because you don't know what they're asking and it doesn't know all the right information. Whereas this right here has all the data. So make sure you're driving that. Well, let's do the other one. Do you remember the prompt you used, by the way? I used the total cost analysis and it had six items in there. It gave me the price, the amount of down payments. So you used one of our templates. Yes, I used one of the templates and it was super easy to utilize. Well, let's check it out. Walk us through it. And anyone listening to this that you are a mortgage coach today, go make a mortgage coach with our AI creator tool. If we have enough time in this conversation with Dietrich, I'll demo it really quick and just show you how easy it can be and do it today. Don't wait till tomorrow. The day you watch this, go do it. Could take you a minute, no more than two. All right, what do we got, Dietrich? All right, Dave. So this is another scenario that I see a lot with the financial advisor clients is deciding how much to put down. And client is usually worried about their pay. And that's what limits their overall thought process on the amount that they put down. A lot of them don't think about the bigger picture and what that money is gonna be doing for them outside of the mortgage. So I use the mortgage coach in order to show that and to input different ways that we can give the client some security and the overall plan strategy of having down payment of say 20% versus 50% and deciding what's the best number to use and gives them a little bit more information and to see it, I think is a big thing in order to get their head around why maybe a larger payment might actually save them money in the long run and create more wealth. So what I'll do here is I'll do the analysis. This was an $800,000 purchase price and I did a 20% down, so 160,000 down in this first column. And then they had asked about keeping their payments somewhere in that low threes to around $3,000 a month. That's what they thought that made sense from their budget standpoint. And I showed them how much that would take versus the other one at 20% down and showing what that payment would be. So what I'll do in this, and by the way, whenever I'm doing this, I will, sometimes I will have a conversation with the financial advisor if I can get in front of them before I have a meeting so that I can talk to them about what I'm gonna show them. And sometimes I can get a rate of return that they would like me to use. And so I can input that and be on the same page. That way, when I show it to them and they go back to the financial planner, they're like, oh yeah, that all lines up. I talked to Dietrich about it. We can see whether or not it makes sense to put that down or to put less down. So in this case, it was 20 versus the 50. It was gonna be about $1,569 difference to the monthly payment. But what I usually show is I will input in a reinvestment strategy area. I'll put a rate of return of the money. So in this case, I put a rate of return of 8% on the $237,000 that they saved from this cash to close to this cash to close. And I put it into reinvestment in their portfolio at 8%. And this calculated in their net worth here, I use this screen to calculate what that net worth is gonna look like over the 12 years. And you may ask, hey, why 12 years? So what I did here is I showed them if they would have put that 1,569 towards their principal, their loan would have been paid off in about 12 years. But what I would do is I would show, okay, if you decided to prepay your loan and do it that way, and you invested the 8%, it was over $100,000 more in accrued wealth that they would have created just by keeping the money in the account using the same cashflow payments, just directing them to different places. So that adds some huge value I found when having these conversations and then they can connect the dots on why they would consider having a higher payment in this case, because of the big picture of still paying it off and having more money at the end. I think it is critical to have a reasonable rate of return factored in with what the advisor based on the risk tolerance and portfolio would do. So that's why if you don't know the planner yet, I would get that kind of assumption that they usually do so that you're in line versus sending them S&P return or say 10% and then the advisor says, oh, well, maybe that's more should be seven so we should be planning on. So I think that's a good tactic to do upfront and that helps get the buy-in for whatever strategy works best for the client. Yep, always good to ask the customer for their return and every chance you can get you connected with the advisor so that you can start building a relationship and a connection. And again, this is a real valuable service to a consumer. So if you're a financial planner, you wanna work with a load officer that can help put the mortgage as a tool within a financial planning decision. And how can you do that with that mortgage coach? So I would love a couple of things, Dietrich, if you could one forward both the links to these mortgage coaches and the actual prompt that you used. That way we can like turnkey this for you. Now guys, don't wait. I'm gonna demo it real quick just so you can see how easy and how cool this thing is. Let me get my right screen. All right, here we go. All right. So this is the mortgage coach advice engine and click new presentation. And if you have Encompass, you can start it from there. You can start it blank, but create with AI. Did you pick one of these templates? Is that what you did? Yes, I did. I picked the template, the standard. I did standard home purchase and this options. Maybe the down payment options was for the difference in that one. Okay, down payment options. Which by the way, I do think when it comes to financial advisors and you're telling a story, showing down payment options where like, oh, they could have put 50% down, but I showed them, hey, this is what 50% looks like because they had to take money away from the financial advisor to do that. This is what that looks like versus, hey, if you put 20% down, but you kept whatever X invested, what would that look like in 12 years? A financial planning horizon. And so that's a good one. But for this demo, I'm just gonna copy and paste a prompt. Now, this could have been taken out of an email. You could have copy and pasted an email. You could take a picture of something and you could do voice to text. And now Mortgage Coach AI is working. Like it's, first thing it's trying to do is enhance this prompt. If we had an address in it and we had data, it would enhance it. So it's, AI has made some assumptions like AI does. And then it's a super genius mortgage advisor helping you present these strategies. Well, guys, Mortgage Coach total cost analysis has been created in really less than a minute. Two more questions, Dietrich. Do you ever use the guided view or the single option Mortgage Coach? Yeah, I use that single option Mortgage Coach for when I hone in on the strategy after we've maybe gone through and did some comparison and arrived at the right plan A solution. And then it will have that further detail. I've found, especially with first time home buyers, it's a great way to do some further explanation and they can see some of that extra information on there. And then, as I mentioned earlier, it has a look and feel of an LE. So first time home buyer, you see that and then they get the LE plus questions or no questions at that point once the disclosures come out. So just so you guys know what Dietrich was talking about, instead of the total cost analysis, he's going with a single option Mortgage Coach. And this is more like LE loan estimate. And I remember when we did the recent call with Guild, you know, you really liked this. Sounded like you always talk about this looking ahead part down here. Yep. Give me the top track on that. Like how and when do you talk about this? So a lot of clients, when they're buying, they have reservations on buying. So for in this example, for a first time home buyer, like when is the right time to buy? You know, what is planned? You know, I always go and look at it as a bigger picture and go back to widen the lens. Like how long are we looking to be in this home? Well, it's usually 10 plus years. Okay, well, I plug in 10 plus years. I plug in the standard appreciation in our market and show them what that's gonna do over time. And it's more focused on what the wealth creation is than what the difference is gonna be between what they're paying right now versus maybe a potentially higher mortgage and how much more money they're gonna have at the end. And doing that and seeing it on paper versus talking about it and visually seeing it in the mortgage coach strategy in this presentation, I think is the best way to connect the dots on that and they can see the value and how much they can creating and less about the timing of when to purchase or concern about interest rates or whatever their concern may be. This is the classic, is the guided view. Which one do you use more or is there a reason? I'm playing around with both of those views. I think the guided view is a great way to give that extra information. That way, you've got a little more to review there if they're more analytical, both in that case. Awesome, well, let's go into wrapping up this playbook of how to win with advisors. First of all, it's a mindset. You have to have this mindset that your advice as a mortgage advisor truly makes long-term differences for the consumer. Like getting a great rate's important, getting the right mortgage strategy to optimize debt and equity in a way that integrates with a financial plan over 10 years, 12 years, 20 years. That's more valuable. So you have to have the mindset and then you have to have the mindset with a financial advisor that if you're not working with a mortgage coach like me, you are disserving your customers. Like your entire database of customers that pay you, whether it's commission or fee, for your advice to build wealth, they're getting shortchanged but if you do not have a relationship with me and I just need you to see it. So if you have this belief and you have this skill, now it's a much easier conversation, even if you have to cold call. So Dietrich, why don't you kind of give your breakdown so we just kind of remind them of everything they need to know to win with advisors from you. Think of yourself, you are a coach and you've been coached. Do the coach debrief to everyone. Well, I would say that everybody needs their toolkit to be able to give confidence to their clients and their referral partners. And mortgage coach is giving you the toolkit to be able to do that. Have confidence in a professional presentation, show the value and articulate the value. So I would say for those that are going after, looking to go after financial advisors and getting good at maybe a couple of different strategies that you do in your market that come up often that you think can help a lot of clients and then sharing those stories and having that organized and prepared. I think you'll be surprised when you get to meeting how much the advisor appreciates the way that everything is laid out. You're talking their language. You are showing them graphs and charts and future strategies and tools that they use on their end from a planning perspective. So it really helps show and build trust with that advisor and allow that mortgage expert to be able to, that you are just using the right tools to display that to an advisor. So I think that's a big key at just getting the ball rolling and getting comfortable and just making those calls and reaching out to those people that you know and seeing who you can, I challenged a coaching group a month ago to do it and they just had never done it. And they reached out and one guy said three meetings and they're like, and already got a deal. And it was twice the loan amount that their average loan amount was. You'll find that the loan amounts increase, the conversion on those clients, they already have some trust built in. So if you have trust with the advisor, there's all sorts of benefits to working with clients that are working with advisors. They appreciate and value strategy. They appreciate the follow-up and trust and the advisor is organized. So it's good to work with those partners as well. Well, it's been a fantastic call. So your closing checklist and some recommendations, you wanna go deeper in this. First of all, have a mortgage coach, total cost analysis of down payment options and make sure that you're using kind of your dream jumbo loan, not something too extreme depending on your marketplace, that sort of fluent customer that has some champagne problems on what to do with how much to put down. Have one of those, one, the confidence you'll gain in building it and looking at it. For all of you that already know how to do that in your sleep and you're already an advanced mortgage strategist, take, think of one that you have and then get a meeting with an advisor and just tell them how committed you are to the long-term interest of consumers and how you're not just a loan officer, you're a mortgage advisor and tell them a story and show them an example. That's the homework assignment, guys. So do that. If you do want to watch more content, like on our YouTube channel, we have an advisor playlist. So I've done a number of calls over the years with different loan officers that dominate this pillar. So there's a number of other loan officers are doing this. So there's more content to watch in that playlist. I'm gonna push this one to the top of that playlist. If you get value from this interview or the Mortgage Coach YouTube channel, give us a like. Like, help us get seen by more people. And that happens through likes and comments. And if there's someone that you'd like me to interview, put a name in comments. If you had a big takeaway today, let us know in comments. Dietrich, your gift to the mortgage industry, not only your local market and your database. So thank you for being a guest on this redo of our Tuesday Coaches Corner. I actually had Shayla Gifford yesterday as my Tuesday guest. So that's already up on our YouTube channel. And make sure that you are subscribing to the Trust Engine newsletter and that you're getting alerts on emails to sign up for the Coaches Corner, because you do need to sign up each week. Put a link down below for that. All right, Dietrich, this is a wrap, unless you've got a closing thought beyond what you've already said. Appreciate the time today, Dave. As always, it's great to see you, and I say, go for it. If you haven't met with any advisors, just take the step and you won't be disappointed. All right, well, take care, everybody. We're wrapping. You don't leave yet, Dietrich, please.