Happy Sunday Everyone:
I had the opportunity to interview our #1 producer at Cross Country (Matt Weaver). Goal was for our team of loan officers (approx. 1200 on the call) to hear from someone who is still performing at the highest level in a challenging market (1500 loans in 2022). Turns out he’s not just the #1 producer in purchase money loans for our company, but #1 in the entire country. I don’t care what business you’re in, what you do, what you’re selling, if you have the opportunity to talk to the #1 person in their field, you have to take note. If you have any desire to improve your business, you have to compare notes against someone who is succeeding at a higher level than you. Just like these Sunday Thoughts, having to write them out, makes me think about them more than anyone reading, interviewing Matt and preparing for our call, probably made me the biggest benefactor of the call. My team is a little tired of hearing the name “Matt Weaver”. I’m not kissing his ass; I’m just impressed with what he’s doing in this environment and can learn from him. I thought I’d write down some of my key take aways from our talk, and the self-reflection while preparing for our interview.
- Commitment to winning: Matt wants to win more than anyone else. I didn’t take this at all as arrogance or focusing on being #1, I took it as he wants to win every loan, he wants to get every client into contract. His mindset is around winning. If your mindset is around winning, then your business practices force you to think about how you win more. The only way you can win more, with integrity, is to be better. The only way to be better, is to allocate time to understanding what in your business is working, what is not, and adapt accordingly.
- Singleness of purpose-Matt would say (did say) this is his single biggest advantage from a competitive standpoint. His singleness of purpose is understanding that the Realtor is his client above and beyond anyone else. Matt spends 30 minutes a day in what he calls “think time”. This is time where he thinks about where his business can be better to help support his Realtors more. Matt was 92% purchase when rates were in the 2’s and low 3’s. I asked, “why didn’t you do any refinances”…his response “how does me doing a refinance help my Realtor buy/sell another home”? I’d ask myself and all of you, if you allocated 30 minutes a day to making your business better, what would happen?
- Mindset: According to Matt there is no negativity in the office. One might say “really”, how realistic is that? I’m not sure, I’m not there in his office daily but given the results, I believe him. He doesn’t engage in negativity. I found him to be a total team player, but he commented that he doesn’t talk to other loan officers, he doesn’t watch the news, he is intentional about keeping his headspace, and his teams, in a positive place. Doesn’t mean he has his head in the sand, he knows data that he needs to know for his business, he blocks out everything else that is negative and serves no purpose to winning.
- Excuseless: this is a word I typically reserve only for my dad, but I found Matt to be exactly that, excuseless. Our initial call, I was thinking about my own year. Inventory is next to nothing, rates are way up, our company was acquired, I lost my dad, I have some seriously good excused for my drop in volume, and so do most of you. Excuses don’t help in creating paychecks. As I’ve thought more about it, excuses truly do help you be less. Might sound obvious but the more I can drill down into the word, the more I’d like to stay away from it. First definition of excuse that i found “attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense); seek to defend or justify”….No thanks.
My initial call with Matt was based on “this is why what he’s doing wouldn’t work in my market”. When I dropped the ego, when i dropped the excuses, when I started saying “this is what I can take away and implement based on my conversation with Matt”, positive momentum started. Our team is great, we’re not 100% broken, we do a lot of things right, but this call with Matt reignited some fires to simply be better. I think so many have been on their heels, you actually get used to it, we believe our excuses and we start to justify them more and more. Getting out, talking to people still winning, eliminating excuses, finding and thinking of ways to win, tweaking things in our business, and seeing the results, it’s more fun and certainly leads to being better.
Have a great week ahead!