Chris –
All right. Well, I’m excited because I’m here with somebody that I’ve been chopping it up with for the last, what, three years over Tequilas and Modelos. Probably the same bar. But I’m here with Austin Bates. Austin, Thank you for being here today, man.

Austin –
Yeah, absolutely, man. I’m excited.

Chris –
Yeah, dude, this is. This has been a long time coming, so I’ve been meeting with Austin, and we love talking about industry stuff, but Austin is one of the top 300 loan officers in the country, so this is no joke. This dude is a badass. He’s a branch manager over at VIP. He has made millions just being an advocate for customers who are getting declined through builders, and this guy has figured out ways to make deals happen.

Chris –
One of the things that I loved you telling me, Austin, when we first started meeting is like, You won’t put your name on a piece of paper unless you know that customer is going to be able to take that piece of paper and get approval. And it’s like gold. And I was like, That’s a level of credibility that you bring to the mortgage business because far too often I see loan officers putting their name on stuff that’s never going to go.

Chris –
And so you’ve built an insane business around this. You’ve been in the industry for 19 years. You’re a father, a husband. You have two kids. Beautiful family. Congratulations on that, my friend. And you originally started in Tucson in a major way to Scottsdale. And I’m just so curious, man. So first off, you know, you’ve done amazingly well in the industry.

Chris –
You’re well known in the circles of anybody that’s doing builder business or any loan officers in the country. So are in specifically in Arizona. So I’m lucky to have you here, man. So thank you for doing this, dude.

Austin –
Well, thank you for having me. Absolutely. You know, the second yes, it was a brainer to see us. What’s it like? I watch the podcast when you do them and I like, you know, I spent so long, you know, kind of cringing at my industry. So once you start to get to know people, yes. And they’re like, I don’t like my industry, but I’m like that.

Austin –
I kind of like that guy. And then you start to kind of get your network of there and you’re like.

Austin –
Know, there are a lot of people that I want to disassociate with, but then I come across more and more like-minded people you and I stay in contact with them. You know, a quick story on it. It’s funny. You get those calls all the time just from people checking in with different companies, you know, recruiting promoters or whatever they are in there.

Austin –
And I do remember I had a drive in front of me once. I had a voicemail from your first voicemail I got and I listened to it. And you actually referenced a video that I did specific remember and something about it. And I was like, You know what? What the hell, man? The dude actually spoke to me. Watch something.

Austin –
I’ll give him a callback. And we met for coffee and then we just kind of continued, you know, to keep meeting and talking industry and talking. Absolutely. And so, you know, for people out there that are, you know, trying to call get people to call them back when someone went specific with me about something that they saw that meant they were paying attention, you know, that was a difference of me just deleting it or being like you.

Austin –
I got 10 minutes in front of me and give them a callback.

Chris –
I love it. I think it’s cool. It’s so funny you say that because I actually remember the video because you were on a challenge for what is it, 30 days? Yeah, To do videos.

Austin –
Is my 14 days.

Chris –
14 days. You had to do a video, for 14 days as a part of some challenge. I think it was with your training or your coaches.

Chris –
I was like, But, but it was funny because it was at a time I mean, if you think back, it was like two, three years ago. Not a lot of people were doing video. And now I feel like a lot of people are doing video and you’re, you know, way ahead of the curve. So any time I see that I was like, dude, this guy is legit.

Chris –
And then I looked at your numbers and I’m like, Okay, this dude’s really legit, and I’m kind of glad that you’re not doing it because I don’t know if you can handle the amount of business. You know, for those of you that are listening, this guy’s like, all-American, good-looking dude, you know? So if you’re watching it, you can see it.

Chris –
But I mean, get you on. But I can’t believe you’re not doing more videos, man. So hopefully I can inspire you to jump in and really take it to the next level.

Austin –
You’ve continued to tell me on that stupid thing from my own standpoint is that I did that for 14 days and literally I would see people who were like, Hey, I’m watching those videos that you’re doing, you know, And I’m like, Dammit, it’s working. And I did it for 14 days and people are still sitting there saying, you know, you need to do video more.

Austin –
And so, you know, I don’t know. I definitely see the value in it. I love it. I watch the good ones that are there. You know, it just goes to show you, like we all do things that work and that were well, that work that was a good idea. So funny. And then you just don’t do it and.

Chris –
You don’t do it anymore. Like every loan officer started their business doing open houses, got a lot of business, get made a bunch of people, and then stopped doing it because they got too busy.

Austin –
And then what happened this summer? The only people going to open houses were in abundance.

Chris –
Yes, Yes, that’s exactly true. And they’re going to be busy. They’re going to stop again. Just seconds.

Chris –
So true. No, man. Well, look, I think, you know, one of the things that I love is, is your story. You have a very remarkable story, not just in how you got into the industry, but you know, how you came up. So you were doing college football, right? Yeah. And then how did you end up I mean, from college football, Like everybody has aspirations to go pro, and then you ended up somehow going into lending. So how did that all take place?

Austin –
Well, I didn’t have aspirations to go pro, so I was a walk-on. Yeah. So my aspirations were to travel and get in the real locker room, you know. So they were more minor in that sense. But still, I look at the experience, I think it really shaped me a lot. Yeah, it’s funny that some of the most successful people I know right now were walk-ons.

Austin –
Gotcha. You know, there’s something to be said for, I think going off to college without any real guidance. You know, scholarship kids have a lot of stuff for them. They have training wheels and tutors and everything. The walk-ons are kind of like, Hey, you’re over here. Figure it out. And, you know, if you last, you last.

Austin –
If you don’t, you don’t. We’re not really spending any money on you. You’re kind of looking back at it. Have to kind of figure it out on your own. Yeah. When you just get your independence, which is tough for an 18-year-old kid and, you know, you look at the people that made it out of that first locker room into the big locker room, probably went from like 35 to maybe eight or something like that.

Austin –
Wow. And then the guys that actually, you know, made it all the way through to the end, I think was probably only a couple. Would you.

Chris –
Say like it’s a lot harder to go from walk-on to, you know, legit being in the locker room with everyone else as it would have been just to go into the locker room and be with everybody else scholarship-wise, you know, everything is it’s an uphill battle.

Austin –
Right there. The guys are so in there as a walk on and some guys you just missed on, you know, they come in and they just stand out. They should have been on scholarship the whole time. Some guys take five years to get that scholarship, you know, and some of the stories, I mean, they would give out scholarships at the end of camp every year to a walk-on who earned it usually a late in their career kind of walk on and those guys were just the whole team would gravitate towards them.

Austin –
They would get so emotional because they worked so hard.

Austin –
For for those moments and those things that, you know, you take for granted in high school that you don’t want to do, you know, kick off special teams as you get in college. Like hell, yeah. You know, but you look back at it and you’re like, well, shit, you know, I’m kind of proud about, you know, some of the progress in that sense.

Austin –
You know, I did get to the point where, you know, ego got the best of me and I quit on that sense. And it’s funny because I actually, you know, was was was speaking to a team of college football kids about a year and a half ago and Schuster I’ve got a client of mine who’s a spiritual advisor for Arizona Christian University.

Chris –
Oh, wow. Okay.

Austin –
I wasn’t aware that it was the university or that they had a team, and this is during the COVID year. So it was like April 2021. And you guys called me coach because we talk about a coach. I have a coach, my son and stuff, and I coach Little League football and he’s said, Hey, coach, Yeah, coach. He’s like, you know, we just did a riff forms like, Hey, as spiritual advisor for isn’t a Christian.

Austin –
I’m tasked with bringing kids in to talk to the team you know, would you be open to coming in and talking to them And I’m like, Yeah, sure, why not? You know, come out and, you know, any time I’ve kind of spoken or kind of got in front of someone, I usually just kind of get up and wing it.

Austin –
I feel okay about it. I love the idea, of what I want to talk about. And so I drive across town, you know, out in Glendale. And it again, this is like April. So it’s a pretty hot day. Park across campus, try to find a way to that atrium and walk all the way across campus. I’m now I’m sweating. Yeah.

Austin –
And as I and I get in there and it’s in season and they just finished practice and so they’re sitting there in the auditorium and it’s like getting that trim, like that smell of college football practice, you know, it smells like shit. Yeah. And I’m like, I get so nervous. I’m like, Oh my God. Like, these guys just finished practicing their talk.

Austin –
There they had a game last weekend. You know, they’re prepping for this week’s game. I’m in a white button-up in khakis. What the hell am I going to say to these guys?

Chris –
This hit you like that? Like just it’s all real.

Austin –
It’s going to make any sense at all that they’re going to care about, that they care about mortgages. You don’t get mortgages. So all the coaches go through all this stuff. I’m getting more and more nervous as they’re doing it and he calls me down to kind of get in there and speak with them. And I’m like, okay, what could I translate or relate to these guys about what maybe my experience or what I’m doing right now And, you know, do they care about the success that I’m going through and stuff or my story at all?

Austin –
And as I’m talking to them, I’m kind of talking about, you know, the process of, you know, walking on and being in a different locker room and kind of getting the next step. And then, you know, as I’m doing it, I’m kind of starting to come to a realization. And I said, you know, the one thing I could tell you guys, you know, the most important thing I can tell you guys is the second that you stop playing and the second you walk out of this locker room, this auditorium off this team, you’re going to go out into the real world and you’re not going to have any coaching or mentorship.

Austin –
And the most lost ten years of my life were from when I stopped having coaching or mentorship athletically, too, when I got coaching and mentorship professionally. And we’ve talked some about it, you know, pride in what I did and stuff like that. But when I look at it, I said my thought process was someone’s going to see me and say, Hey, you’ve got potential.

Austin –
I want to come and help you out. And then for some reason, I felt like I would just work really hard. People would see it and say, Hey, I’m going to come and grab you. And I’m like, The best piece of advice I can give you is find something doing what you want to do better than you and go ask them for help and guidance.

Austin –
Yeah, go seek mentorship. Go seek coaching. Because my whole life changed when I got it. And now I’ve got three of them, you know what I mean? Yeah, but the most loss I ever was. That’s the one component that was missing.

Chris –
That’s so crazy.

Austin –
Professional me and afterward, you guys, thank you so much for that. I’d like to thank you. Like, literally, I came to a realization as I’m sitting there talking to these kids and that’s true. Well, it is.

Chris –
Yeah. I mean, I think that there are so many factors in that. I mean, when you like and this is what the podcast all about it’s it’s I’m looking to inspire Austin somebody who is you 20 years ago and so what would you say to you right and you and you’re hitting it on the head it’s like you know I think I always say this, but there are two types of people in the world.

Chris –
There are people with coaches and just people are not without coaches and the people with coaches, you know, you’re a really good example of it is like that. The ten years that you were lost in life were because you lacked coaching. And I wonder, was it was there a point in that period where you felt a sense of freedom not having coaching, to then realizing like, I really needed that direction?

Austin –
No, I mean, during that period is where, you know, that’s where some of the entitlement sense would kind of come in. I should be doing more. I’m doing all the work. They’re making all the money. You know, the things as you grow into management and leadership stuff, now you’re like, did you got to do all this work and this work sucks.

Austin –
I can’t tell you you got to do this work for six years until you actually know what you talk about when you go into a room. But it won’t be until you can go into a room and know what you talk about no matter what. Who asked you that question you could answer it. You feel empowered. You feel like you’re the best, and then you ask for the business.

Austin –
But those years before that, you don’t know the answers to those questions. Yes, you’re going to do all the work and someone else is going to make the majority of the money. Yes. You know, and that’s just the way that.

Chris –
And that’s a rite of passage. I mean, it’s almost like everybody that we, you know, you talk to anybody who’s made it, they all age shit. Oh, yeah. Coming up, you know, it was like and there’s something to be said about that. I mean, you talk to any big producer, they were someone’s assistant at some point, or they, you know, they struggled at some point.

Chris –
And that’s again, you know, that’s all part of the podcast because we all had to come into our own with that comfort level. But there was a journey to get there. And so, you know, so you started out how did you end up in mortgage? Like what? What led you there?

Austin –
So my mom was in mortgages, but, you know, I had no intention of ever going into it. So from college, stressed out, playing football, I actually went abroad for a semester in Spain. Then I came back. I got.

Chris –
Do you know Spanish?

Austin –
No, by the time I came back, you could have dropped me off at the southern tip of Mexico. I could have gotten back to California. Yeah, I had a really good time doing it. Yeah, but now, no, nothing at all. It was fun, though, and I remember I was in the business school down at U of a university in Arizona.

Austin –
And I always liked math. It always came really easy to me. I like being able to solve problems. Once I knew the formula to solve the problems. And so I was a finance major because my brother was a finance major. So I’m like, okay, well, it’s easier. He will have all the teachers and the notes and stuff to go through, and he’s in a fraternity and stuff.

Austin –
And so I’m like, Oh, I’ll just go to finance. Why not? Yes. And the first semester in finance, I remember we had an accounting class and it was you know, it was a middle Eastern teacher in the class. And, you know, going through like the principles of the accounting stuff. And I remember we had a test and got the grades back for test the moon over it.

Austin –
And I got a question wrong and I had the answer right. And so afterward I go down to him, I’m like, I think I got the answer right. He’s like, Well, how’d you get this? I’m like, It’s right there. How did you get this? I’m, I guess, right there. So I like, I had my formula to get the answer and it was all kind of written out there.

Austin –
And he gives me like plus half back on it. I’m like, What the hell is it like, I don’t have time to go through how you did your work to get the answer. And I laid out so pissed off and I’m like, F this man, I’m not taking I’m dropping this class. I’m not going to go through this anymore.

Austin –
So and my buddy from high school that I went to the locker room to sign out to middle school with was out in front of the class and he’s like, What’s up, Tim? I hate this class, man. I should have got full credit on this thing. You guys, you should get into marketing. It’s 80% women and it’s still in the business school and you don’t have to take accounting.

Austin –
A day later. I was a marketing major.

Chris –
Oh, this is amazing.

Austin –
So for the next year and a half, I took all marketing classes in the marketing department down there at UVA, and I wouldn’t change a thing. I learned more in marketing, service, marketing, advertising, and analytical marketing, you know, that helped me for the rest of my life than I would ever learn in the finance classes. Absolutely. And then I get into finance afterward.

Austin –
I didn’t I didn’t want to I didn’t want to sell. I didn’t want to sell stuff. I didn’t believe in it. My mom was just like, you know, why don’t you come on and work with me in 23 down and to sign and over hormones And, you know, you can learn under me. I don’t want to do this much longer.

Austin –
You know, I’ll be retired and get out of the business, and I could help you out. And I subconsciously always heard her on the phone growing up. So I knew the way that she talked to people. She held people really accountable, you know, And like, I’ll see myself doing some stuff right now and I’ll always be like, guess because of my mom.

Austin –
And so for about a year down there, you know, she would she didn’t trust I worked under her trying to learn the business. She would work from home for the most part. That’s before working in policy, before. Okay. But I wanted to go to the office. So you go into the office all you want. Say I’m gonna be here.

Austin –
So when I would go there, I would print out notes, print out a bunch of stuff, you know, actually, which is really important in that. So, John Bowlby, I think he’s the CEO of NOVA right now. He was producing at the time and is still running Nova. And then he moved into a leadership position, but he had just stopped being the number one the two years before.

Austin –
He was the number one unit originator in the entire country at Tucson, Arizona, and a Stanford grad systems guy. I think he’s responsible for starting teams in the industry. You know, but he would always send emails out. I would always print his emails, Yeah. How do you describe PR to people? And I had this book of.

Austin –
Emails, everyone’s emails, and I’d print guidelines, you know, I’d go through everything and I would just go in there and study the studies. I had nothing to work out, just working on loans and coming home, you know. So I’d just study and study and study and I had that books for like 15 years. I don’t know where it’s at now.

Austin –
I think I might have given it to someone, but a lot of really good materials in there. But I would just kind of study and study and study, and then I’d go home and my mom would, you know, she didn’t trust computers, so we had to hand calc a lot of stuff. And I had a hand in my fees.

Austin –
And, you know, Hancock dealt with debt ratios and stuff. And, you know, again, her clients really liked her because she was always accountable to them. So, you know, she didn’t like the condition. She would go second, she’d get approval. She told the underwriter, you know, and answer the phone to drive down there to the mistake. No, I go over this right now.

Austin –
I’m not just going to you’re going to ignore me. I’m going to get this condition. If it had this condition, that would be subconscious.

Austin –
Not a person that would call and say, okay, I’m gonna fax it over to you. So great. I got a fax machine right here. I’ll wait. Yeah, that’s going to be it was going to be 30 minutes. Okay, great. 30 minutes. What’s your extension? I’ll call you back in 30 minutes. If I don’t have it. There you go.

Austin –
Let’s just get it right there. You know, she didn’t have the time to wait. And so, you know, it’s funny, at first they would kind of, like, embarrass me some, like, she’s so pushy or you’re going to embarrass me or, like, you’re like, you’re like they said they give it to you. Why don’t you just let them give it to you?

Austin –
You know, I didn’t understand until ten years later why she would.

Austin –
Also, say yes.

Austin –
You know, but I didn’t want to do it in Tucson. So I took a job up in Phenix.

Chris –
And as a loan officer?

Austin –
As a loan officer, a lot of folks just in kind of an at a mortgage bank out of a kind of in Mesa Shelter Mortgage. And, you know, it was a great experience from a learning standpoint. You know, it’s a lot of stuff that, you know, the reasons I wanted to be in the industry weren’t really it was a bank.

Austin –
It was, you know, 8 to 5. It’s really 745, and 530, and lunch is just from 145 to 1230. Yeah. And you know, so knowing that I had to be there during all of those times and all of those hours and stuff like that when I couldn’t kind of go and do what I needed to do, but I still needed to learn stuff.

Austin –
And so I was processing my own files. I was a notary, I was signing clients. Oh my gosh, Yeah. When I first got there, they made me a notary. And within like two weeks I was going to sign a client in North Scottsdale, like $1,000,000 refi. And I’m like, I don’t know what’s in this stuff. And I remember I drive up with the closing package at 6:00 in the afternoon and pull over to an Albertson’s parking lot.

Austin –
And I call my mom and I go through the page by page of the closing pack. And what’s this? What’s that? What’s this, Fred? They’re going to ask me for something. Yes. You know, and I go to the closing and they had a bunch of questions and then no one was answering my calls. I’m trying to get those questions.

Austin –
And so I had to fend for myself. So I got into a habit of going to some of these appointments are going to see if people understood.

Austin –
And when I would.

Austin –
Go there, I would go to their house. I’d find something on their wall that I could relate to, okay? And I would go right toward it. So I would just drop the barrier. I’d be like, Oh, your daughter goes to you if that’s great. I was down there, Oh, you’ve got a son that plays football. I would find a way to relate to something.

Austin –
So and these, these signing appointments that no one would ever answer my calls for that weren’t on my files would go through just fine, you know? And that kind of became something that as I started to get some of my own clients and work on some of the bank’s clients and stuff, you know, I didn’t want to stay in that office all the time, so I would drive to clients for everything.

Austin –
Hey, I could send you a pay stub you. You know, I have an e-mail, a 15-minute, you know what? I’m going to be in the area. How about I just stop by and get it?

Austin –
Yeah, you just. I would never.

Austin –
Get worse off than just going to the office. Yeah, but in doing so, the same thing. Get to the office, come to their environment, come to their office, sit with them, see what’s important to them, try to talk about that, try to relate with them. And I became really close to my clients in doing that. I love that, you know.

Austin –
And so but again, I would get to July 2005 and you’re in the middle of the boom. Probably most deals had a first and second mortgage. I was processing all of my own loans. I had the ability to draw dogs, which is cool now, but, you know, probably a bad idea back then. So I was doing pretty much a majority of everything, you know, every aspect of the deal with probably too.

Austin –
Three years experience, maybe two years experience. So, you know, a little baptism under fire in that sense, surrounded by good people. But still having to do a lot of the stuff that, you know, now is broken up over multiple, multiple individuals. So, you know, I would sit there and I would do that, but I would wake up in the middle of the night and go to the kitchen in my house and start to write down everything I had to do on every file to make sure I memorized it and knew about memory.

Austin –
You know, I’d be like, okay, the martini deal. I’ve got first and second mortgage insurance and started standing on that. I’ve got to order the title. You know, I’m still waiting on this. I’m still waiting on that. There weren’t the systems in place in 2004 that there were right now to kind of track. If there was, I didn’t have them.

Chris –
But I’ll tell you, I still think that that process is important. Like if I write it down. Yeah, I don’t have to study.

Austin –
I just wrote it down. Every head, every morning I write down a list at the right.

Chris –
So then you remember it just like it’s like. So I do think it’s an important thing. Like even with reporting. Yeah. Like I can have somebody pull my report, but if I get an email with the report, I’m not going to read it. It’s when I pull it myself that I know and I remember the numbers and I’m like, okay, this is really important.

Chris –
I got to remember these, these, you know, tidbits of things. But I think that I think it there’s a loss you know, we’ve lost our way with the newer generation coming in because I don’t see a lot of people doing what you’re doing like, like studying, you know, guidelines and studying, you know, I mean, I guess now people are watching content and learning from that.

Chris –
But I mean, you know, from the perspective of you taking every email and reading it and learning and then, you know, going out to what’s weird about this does this not weird but remarkable, if I should say, is what you were doing. Maybe it was an excuse to get out of the office, but what it really did was teach you how to meet and connect with people in a different way in the masses.

Chris –
Because if you go back and rewind it, there were probably 50 people you did this with that you’re just better at connecting with people now because of that experience, you know as you did it on steroids. And I think people are missing that these days. So how did you end up leaving that company?

Austin –
So March 26, of course. Probably the peak of the market.

Chris –
Peak, Yeah.

Austin –
Yeah, I did two of the dumbest things they could have done. Probably looking back at it. But that shaped my career. I bought a condo.

Chris –
Have you ever looked at what that condo did, what it is today?

Austin –
I sold it like three months ago.

Chris –
Oh, really?

Austin –
For probably what you bought it for.

Austin –
I was doing purchase loans for people that had short-sale condos that bought at the same time I did. And my homes can keep. Hold on. Yeah, I’m in the industry, so I wanted to have responsibility for that.

Austin –
Because I just didn’t, you know, I didn’t find it. I’m like, I don’t I can make myself qualify for a short sale. I can make myself qualify for a modification, but I don’t feel right in doing so because I don’t really need it. So I’m just going to keep maintaining it.

Chris –
So you bought a top-of-market 290 condo. There are foreclosures going for 130.

Austin –
Now, I just sold it for 370.

Chris –
Good for you. Yeah but so anybody who thinks that real estate isn’t a good investment. You went through two cycles and you still made money three months ago that you could have sold it a year before and still made crazy money.

Austin –
Almost a terrible time in the market. Yeah. So I did that and then I quit because I didn’t want to. You know, I think I learned a lot in that position. And when we talk about like, you know, your entitlement stage and like you feel like you should be rewarded a little bit more. I did. I felt like I worked really hard.

Austin –
I feel like and I also felt like if I would have given a little bit more incentive, a reward, I probably would’ve stayed there longer. And so it kind of gave me a chip on my shoulder. And that, you know, I know I brought a lot of outside business in there to them and I felt like I, you know, should have been rewarded a little bit more for that.

Chris –
I think that yeah.

Austin –
These but yeah, but I’ll always remember that you know. Yeah. That’s why you know if asked for a little bit. But as I run a team and stuff and as I have people I’m responsible for, I never want to be, I never want to like financially benefit or things that I’m not responsible for. So as people do things that that wouldn’t have come, you know, for me, like, I’m not a team member says, Hey, your production goes in my name.

Austin –
No, it’s your production. That’s your bonus. That’s yours.

Chris –
Was should be.

Austin –
Yeah, yeah. You know, and it’s like that’s the kind of Hey, you brought a lot in this month. Here is more I recognize and reward that Yes and I could have even just had a conversation but when I got to the point where I’m like, you know, no matter what I do, I’m not going to be more rewards.

Austin –
So why would I put more into that? And I think that’s a true statement. You know, we’ve got to understand, like, hey, yeah, you got to do a lot of the work to learn and without a doubt to make money. But there’s still the more work you do, the more reward you’re going to have.

Chris –
I think that’s missing.

Austin –
I want you to be incentivized to work harder and work more. I do want to say if I work 8 to 5 or if I work 8 to 12. I’m still going to make the same pay. That should be bullshit. You know, the ones that work, the harder, the harder hardest should be.

Chris –
Without a doubt.

Austin –
Yeah. And so when I felt like that wasn’t going and I and I kept I’m in talks with the president over there and every time I talk to him, the five-year plan, you’re five bigger and you want you to look smaller. And I’m like, wait a second. Like, literally you’re telling me how much more would make in five years, but you keep showing me how much less I’m going to make it.

Austin –
You’re too like something’s not right with it. Yeah, I think when I. When I lost trust in that process. Yeah, I lost the motivation to work. Absolutely. And so for, like three or four months, I was kind of dead man walking on the job. Even a buddy of mine is like, dude’s like, you got to go. And so.

Austin –
But it’s, you know, you’re in a banking job and stuff and it’s like just comfortable enough kind of to see. And I’m like, All right, I’ve got to have something set up. And so I had buddies in Tucson at a brokerage, and so I basically went out and started brokering with them out of my condo that was probably worth $50,000 less than I paid for it a week before.

Austin –
Yes, I quit, went, bought my condo, went to brokering from a banking environment, and then the and then the bottom’s fallen out, you know, But everything that I have done, at the bank, for the two years prior, I went to everyone’s house. Like no one knew I didn’t have an office. I worked out of my condo, but I went everywhere.

Austin –
I’ll come to your housing thing, you know? Hey, you can’t get your your your client wants you. It’s like you know, we need a copy of the check for the deposit for, you know, a jumbo loan and get cleared and they’re closed. Like, I’m going, I can’t get the deposit to print for my computer. And I got to go to the airport in an hour.

Austin –
I’m like, I’ll pick you up. I’ll take you to the airport. We’ll stop by the bank on the way. We’ll get a copy of the check. I’ll drop you off at the airport, I’ll go home, I’ll scan it, I’ll get it over to the underwriter. Yeah. And, you know, I would do anything for my clients just because I felt like I had no choice. I had to, you know.

Austin –
Way. And, you know, I go to title the way for closing docs to take them back up to places to fund faster because they were waiting on couriers. You know, I would just live out of my car and I would go everywhere that I could. You know, I’d go to signings in Tucson. I would go everywhere.

Chris –
Same as a broker.

Chris –
Broker. And so in this period of time, you know, you have your mom in industry. Is she mentoring you throughout the way? Like, are you calling her I mean, are you trying to do this on your own at this point?

Austin –
I’m calling her to complain, you know, and I’m just you know, I’m calling her to say like, you know, I got to deal with this now or there’s like two things that I knew that she would be able to talk her way through. Yeah. She wasn’t a broker at the time. You know, now broker has come a long way and like a lot of friends and brokers, you know I think it’s an important part of the industry.

Chris –
It was a bad time.

Austin –
It means that you know, when it was bad, it was really bad. You can’t get a hold of anyone if they don’t agree with you, then tough, tough shit. You got to figure it out. It only. And when it became an issue, it’s like, Oh yeah, well, the transcripts aren’t in yet. Well, I’m like, You ordered them wrong.

Austin –
Yeah, like, we got a phone. There is there’s a moving truck that’s.

Chris –
If you get it, that’s if you could talk to them, you know. Yeah.

Austin –
That was and it was so it could be a big, big it could be relationship.

Chris –
You remember when, when people were signing up but like do you remember when they were just shutting down? Yeah. Like Taylor being Whitaker, just I had like, I want to have like, I like 20 deals. They just.

Austin –
Like, all control is the way you did it. And it was, you know, I would lose time of my life. I felt like I would worry all the time. Just, yeah, about anxiety. Something that I committed to. I committed to this. And these people are relying on me, but I don’t have control because at the end of the day if the person that I can’t talk to doesn’t agree with me and is saying, no, this is the way that we read it, or that’s just our policy or, you know, I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do about it.

Chris –
You know, I would just I would terrorize people until someone got me what I needed and what I wanted.

Chris –
That’s the only way to do it.

Austin –
And I’d like to be kind of fun. This week, an exception to income. And you’re ordering transcripts and you put the address in wrong, like close the loan. You know.

Austin –
And Buddy and we’re just we’re in the middle of a downturn and so the market gets worse and worse.

Chris –
Worse and worse. Yeah.

Austin –
And you know, I talked to you a little bit about this during that time. You know, if someone hired me, I would work my ass off for them. You know, I would do whatever. But on the other side of it, you know, our perception of our industry was terrible. Yes. And, you know, my perception of myself was that I’m better than that.

Chris –
So I’m just not going to tell anyone what I do.

Chris –
That See, that’s what’s crazy. And I mean, because we’ve talked about this and like and I think there was a thing like, I’ll give you a quick story, and then we’ll turn it over because I think this is important for people to hear. But I remember we were I was visiting my mom in San Antonio and she said, yeah, we’re going to do you know, we’re going to do this remodel and do this.

Chris –
And I said, Where are you getting the money from? She’s like, Oh, we did it. Home equity. I said. And I looked at it. I was like, Well, where did you do the home equity? She’s like, Oh, at the bank down the street. And so we’re going to get the money. And she said, Oh, I’ll probably get it like tomorrow.

Chris –
And so what did you apply? She said, Like yesterday. And I was like, No, you’re not gonna get the money tomorrow. Like, it’ll probably be like 30 days. And, then I was like, Hey, why didn’t you call me on this? Like, so at least I can see if you’re getting a good deal or I can kind of walk you through it.

Chris –
She has contractors coming over, you know, they think they’re getting paid. I’m like, You’re not getting this. You’re not getting funds tomorrow, right? This is not going to happen. And she’s like, well, Chris, I have no idea what you do. And then at that point, it hit me. I was like, I tell nobody what I do.

Chris –
And it wasn’t necessarily the same reason for the same reasons that you didn’t want to tell people. I just didn’t want to be that guy that’s always selling something. I remember coming up, my dad was always a salesman of something, right? Like Amway or, you know, insurance or something. So he was always trying to figure out an angle to sell somebody something.

Chris –
And I would cringe listening to it. And so I didn’t want to be I didn’t want to do that. And luckily I absorbed everything he was doing, which later helped me in life. But I just didn’t want to be that fringy person selling something. So I never told anybody. And then it flipped on me that day because I was like, I’m going to tell everybody and business was coming in at that point.

Chris –
Like, I would tell the person cutting my hair, like, Hey, you know, you talked to a lot of people. You know, when people are moving, I’m going to leave you my stack of cards just and you know, because they know you are giving a good deal, you know, just I’ll hook them up, you know, just get them back to me.

Chris –
And then I would do their deal and then I would do somebody else deal. So just kept, you know, kept it, kept compounding over time. And then I realized, like, why did all those years I was afraid to tell anybody what I did? So tell me about you like, why were you embarrassed? What really was it that drove me?

Chris –
Because this is a big deal for you. You want nobody to know. You went. You had leaps and bounds and tell people.

Austin –
Well, I just didn’t bring it up, you know? What would?

Chris –
What would you answer if they ask?

Austin –
In finance.

Chris –
There’s somebody that on their LinkedIn to this day it says like real estate finance. And I’m like, no, you are a lender.

Austin –
Yeah. I mean you did mortgage dig. Sure. The mortgage guy was the guy who gave the loan to the strippers. And I knew people. And when I was in banking, you know, doing all parts of the transaction, learning the black and the white people. I know we’re making $200,000 and call centers without, you know, college education doing refi and refi after refi after refi.

Austin –
And then so when I was like, I’m going to go out on my own and I’m going to be broke for like all these people, and then everyone’s gone, everybody’s gone. And then it’s 2009 and literally, everyone’s gone. We got to get licensed. And I’m like one of the last ones left. Yeah. And I even went to an informational session at ASU and I sat there no matter how bad it was.

Austin –
I mean, you were. And with information, such an ASU for an MBA, and I sit there in the back class and my class is talking about how, you know, you go to college and cost this and you’re going to come out and you’re going to, you know, make $80,000 salary job. And I’m like, doesn’t sound that good. I’m like, maybe I don’t have it that bad.

Austin –
You know, I work out of my condo, I work out twice a day. I do whatever I want to do, you know, But I still didn’t take it seriously. And so, like, I didn’t if people asked to it, I would tell them. But I didn’t go out of my way. I did not you know, I was very strategic on who I would try to solicit.

Austin –
You know, so I left a lot of business on the table for it for eight years, probably. But I just had to be in a comfortable space with that, you know, or they had to have no association with anyone. Like I wouldn’t go to my friends where realtors make some of your business. I’m a lender because I saw it everywhere and I’m just like, I’m better than that.

Austin –
So you know what? I’m just not going to tell anyone what I do. But I’ll be referred by my client so I work really hard for it. But the fact of the matter is, it’s bullshit. You don’t get referred just by working really hard.

Chris –
Oh, yeah, you might. Sales going to work.

Austin –
Harder than anyone, and I’m gonna get referred for doing it. And that was part of my thought process, you know, And then another part of my thought process was, well, you know, the phone keeps ringing. This could be a great part-time job. You know, I don’t love the perception of this. I don’t like telling people what I do.

Austin –
And, you know, I feel like I’m better than that. I’m a college education, college-educated person. I played sports in college. Like the perception of me to me was greater than the perception of my industry, you know? But I didn’t want to tell anyone what that was. And, you know, I figured like a friend of mine would start a business and, you know, one of the smart friends in the back, you know, cool for an Austin.

Chris –
It’s so weird. All these stats.

Chris –
Are going through your head how you cannot. And then like, fast forward to now you’re in the top 300 you’ve accomplished more than you know. Was your mom ever in the top 300?

Austin –
No, she was in real estate and then in mortgage lending. And then, you know, she got out of the business. Probably after I moved up here, she would kind of she always had her clients call her. But within a couple of years, after I moved up to Scottsdale, she was pretty much trying to refer everything that she could up to me.

Chris –
Well, you’ve accomplished so much in my business.

Austin –
Yeah, it’s crazy. My, you know, real fork in the road for me, You know, after nine years of, you know, not taking it very seriously, but really working really hard and not telling them what I did and not being proud of the industry, but then just being kind of one of the last ones left, you know, I think just by surviving.

Austin –
Yeah, almost in a sense, like a walk-on, like I survived the dungeon locker room and I made the big locker room the different part and the different the difference is when I did it, then it wasn’t like the, okay, what are you going to do now? You’re here in the big locker room. What are you going to do now?

Austin –
I wasn’t ready for that moment. And when I started to get a little bit of success when the market started to turn and I was kind of one of the last ones left, it’s probably 2000, you know, 11 or 12, if you will. You know, I the broker route went from owning a small brokerage to going back on the correspondent side, meeting some good people, getting into an office environment a little bit and you know fast forwarding some you know, hitting my stride somewhat but not really owning this whole thing.

Austin –
And then in 2013, my mom passed away and it was April 2013. My mom passed away. Remember, my dad gave me the call in there. And, you know, I remember in the months after that, it was my thought process was really for about six months. It was tough to get that drive back, you know, And I but I kept telling myself that, you know, shit, dude, you, you, you, you got it in this industry Like you you found the drive, found some success.

Austin –
You know, you’ve been doing it long enough. You were enjoying it. You had some people that you were working around again, you got to get it back. You know you’ve. You felt it. You know it’s there. You’ve got to get it back. And I had my first kind of coaching session with a guy named John Foltz, who was a 20-year president of really the exact and Phenix, just an icon in the real estate side of stuff.

Austin –
Still one of my favorite people I’ve ever met. You know, I’ll call him periodically just to say thank you to him. He’ll call me periodically. Just an amazing individual. If anyone, if anyone’s in the Phoenix market, they want to look up someone to call just to give them help or guidance, calls John Fault and tell them Austin based said to call.

Austin –
Yeah. And John had a thing that he would do and since 2013 later in the year and you know he’s he’d have a real estate training session for ten realtors and you have it sponsored by a lender and he was signed up with with my company homeowners financial the time to kind of work. And I was one of the guys that got a chance to work with them.

Austin –
And so we do this event and there are ten agents. I recognize a lot of the names of high-producing North Scottsdale agents that I didn’t do business with, but that was with the help of the title rep that we used at the time. Julie La Raza with Stewart’s title Shameless Plug, but she was part of that group too, and so she deserves to get credit for it because a lot of her relationships were run in there and part of what John did was he, you know, you have to stand up and tell your story.

Austin –
You know, why are you out where you’re at? And a lot of these agents were high, high-producing agents. It just went through divorce, foreclosure bankruptcy. And so all of these stories were emotional. And, you know, it comes time for me to get up in front of this group of highly successful agents and kind of try to tell my story.

Austin –
And my story was really, you know, talked about my mom, some talk about she brought me in the business and talked about how I didn’t tell a lot of people what I did. I wasn’t proud of the reputation of the industry and stuff. And John just kind of stops me and, you know, I’m standing up and he’s standing up the dude to look at me in the eyes.

Austin –
And he’s like, you know, so let me run something by you. And if you have a friend or family, remember that calls you and said, Hey, I want help with a mortgage, would you refer them to someone else or would you do the transaction? I’m like, I would do it. He’s like, Why am I? Because I wouldn’t trust anyone else.

Austin –
He’s like, Why? Because, like, I don’t think anyone else is better than me. I’m I would work harder on that than anyone. He’s like, okay, so you want to change the perception of your industry by telling no one what you do? He’s like, You’re really good at mortgages, You know, He’s like, I know you’re really good at what you do.

Austin –
You know, you’re really good at what you do. And because of that, you’ve got a gift for what you do. You owe it to your industry.

Austin –
You know to tell them what you.

Austin –
Because if you don’t, then someone else might do a bad job and continue with that bad reputation. If your industry. And so, you know, I’m choking up in this time and it was kind of like the like I looked into my soul but like the guy literally I could tell that he believed in me at a time when I needed someone to believe in me.

Austin –
You needed a coach.

Austin –
I absolutely needed a coach. And I’ll look back at that day whenever it started to happen afterward that’s when professional and personal started to become one. Interesting. I took a lot of pride in what I did because I felt really good about the way that I did it. You know, I didn’t like my industry because I felt like people did a really bad job on it.

Austin –
So what? How did I get better at it? I was so worried a mistake would ever happen that I either surround myself with the people that I felt were the smartest, or I made sure I checked everything on that. So I trusted no one but myself and or the people that I kind of trust. And so I truly believe that I was really good at mortgages, you know?

Austin –
But again, I still don’t want to tell such people about it. So from that point on, I would start to own it a little bit more. And in owning it, you know, some other people would reach out to me and, you know, I always try to make jobs easier for everyone who supported me, you know, processing. If they got my file.

Austin –
It was in perfect shape back when you had the paper files. I loved it because mine would be I would tell the story from start to finish. It would be in perfect order. It wouldn’t be sloppy. The pages would be lined up. They wouldn’t be all over the place. You know, if it was a clip, it was over again.

Austin –
But I wanted everyone to want to work with me, you know, in my personality type as I want everyone to like me.

Chris –
And that’s one of the most important things to do, is be one of the best pieces of advice I would give anyone. Listen to this is be easy to deal with and work with, but not want people to hang up the phone on me and be like, That was easy.

Austin –
Be the low. The processors want to work with the underwriter that the underwriters submitted loan after the underwriters want to read the files for being the low that the closers want to close the files for you know reward them thank them you know help them out, make their job easier. Hey look, I understand that, but here’s what I’m doing on this.

Austin –
Don’t make me search around for it. I know you’re missing that, but, hey, here’s the story as a true story. Don’t worry. It’s Come in. I’ve already addressed this thing. Wow. You’ve made this really easy. I could follow what you did. Yeah. The next file I get, I have no clue what the hell is going on. And I kept hearing that, and I’m like, Okay, cool.

Austin –
Make their job easier. They’ll work harder for me. I could do more. And around 2012, I had a lady at my last company named Stacy Green, and she was like a process of the year for the company for like four years in a row. And a lot of high-end producers had her as a processor and, you know, we started to do some work together and the opportunity came up where she’s like, you know, hey, I want to work with you.

Austin –
I want to just work with you like I want to be your partner or assistant, whatever. And I was like, Why? Wow. What? Why would you want to work with me? I don’t do enough business to keep you happy or support you. And, you know, and we actually started together and working on a builder account.

Austin –
And I didn’t feel like I warranted someone like her helping me. But when we’d work together, we’d work together in a partnership format and, you know, and in doing so, I don’t think that she’d ever had people treat her as a true partner. And for me, it’s like, Well, you’re probably the only one I trust with my loans as much or more than me.

Austin –
So if we’re going to do this and let’s do this, let’s do this together, and you fit a component that if I could trust that this process is going to go good, and I got someone that I trust from a mortgage IQ standpoint to take this thing on from start to finish. Yeah, I can go sell it.

Austin –
I can go sell it. And now that I believe in myself, I believe in my process and I don’t feel like anyone does it better. And she was the I got it. Go get more. And I truly believed it was.

Chris –
So let me jump in there because I’ve talked about this, you know, throughout my career, especially like, you know, in every company I’ve worked with is that your operations team? So I manage operations for a few years at Wells excuse me, and I and I wanted to be the I got you, leader, I wanted to be the I got you operations team as I got you.

Chris –
Go get another right. And I think I think a lot of people and a lot of times we missed that you know in terms of your culture is I got you whether you’re a manager, whether you’re in operations, wherever you’re at in an organization that has a sales force if your sales force feels like you have their back, that you can get it done for them.

Chris –
So that they can have the confidence to get out there and do it. I think we missed that. But when you find it, that’s the breakthrough moment that happens where your confidence is skyrocketed. You go out and get business and. I always say this, but I think loan officers live into feelings. It’s either confidence or anxiety.

Chris –
And if you’re worried about the deal, like if you walked in here today and there was a deal that’s not closing your mind is thinking about that deal the entire time your.

Austin –
Days ruined your weekend, you’re.

Chris –
Just pins and needles. But if you know that you have Stacy on your side or, you know, whoever is on your side that has your back getting it done, then you’re engaged, you’re here, you’re building business and you’re trying to so I think that’s all important. I think those partnerships are key when you’re building. So, you know, the advice I’d give to people is don’t hire when you stop, when you’re scaling your business and you’re hiring, you’re looking to hire somebody, don’t hire your friend that’s available to work.

Chris –
Hire the best person for that job that’s going to do the things that are that you’re maybe not as at they can complement you to handle that and they have experience doing it. I mean your business, is that truly where your business started to skyrocket when you partnered with her?

Austin –
It was when I found someone to kind of believe me that she changed my thought process and said, Hey, believe in yourself, you’re really good, and you owe it to people to tell them what you do. And then in doing that, I had more confidence in what I did. And then I found someone who also believed in me and my business.

Austin –
And I think it was the reward for doing things the right way, you know? And again, for like, if my name is on a file, like, I know everything about that file, like I’m probably the most involved $200 million producer that you’re ever going to see because it’s my name on those files. And part of the reason is that you know, my name is my mom’s name.

Austin –
If my name’s reputation is tied to hard work, and getting the job done, then that’s her reputation, too. There’s a big chip and a lot of pride associated with you.

Chris –
Walk around with that shadow behind you Do?

Austin –
Absolutely. Today, everything I do is based on that. You know, it’s always like it. You know, while she was here, my calls to her were complaining. You know, I never got to be like shit like this. We made it. Like, look at this. Look at me never.

Chris –
Got to be.

Austin –
SheKnows Look at what we did, you know, I mean, and a lot of, a lot of the reasons that I, you know, that I have the drive that I have and the way that I work on, on, on loans, the way that I work on loans and the pride that I take on being able to do loans is because it’s tied to, you know, who I felt like taught me subconsciously, really, how to do that with a lot of other people over the time.

Austin –
But, you know, there is that sense of like, you know, it’s like solely, you know, you have to fly the plane when the computer goes out. I want to see white hair in the cockpit. My dad’s a pilot to the way that I want that. I’m like I want to know how to fix the loan. When the computer says no, I want to know how to do that.

Austin –
Absolutely. It’s like a pull-out napkin. And I get back into everything associated with this transaction and figure it out, you know, because when someone hires us to give them a loan, we’re not trying to we’re not baseball players trying about 300 make the All-Star Game. You know, we needed about a thousand. You know, my rule is if I say yes, you need to close 100% unless they do something really bad or, you know, something happens no one knew about or something happens bad to them.

Austin –
If I say no, no one should be able to do it unless it’s fraud. Yeah. And that’s my belief. My belief is that there’s no one better at doing loans than we are. And I got that belief when I had someone who said, I got it, go get more. And my sales pitch was not, Hey, I got the best rates in town.

Austin –
Hey, you know, a mint on your pillow top. I’ve got the greatest service, I’ve got the greatest videos, got the greatest products. No matter what my sales pitch was, no one is better at doing loans than we are, and I promise you that. And they see that. I believe it. Yeah. You know, and no one’s out there telling them that.

Chris –
So this is crazy to me because I listen to you talk with the most insane amount of confidence in this space in your life. Yet there are times and correct me if I’m wrong, but I gather that you feel like you second-guess it.

Austin –
Yeah, that’s why this is.

Chris –
This is what’s crazy. Why?

Austin –
But I do because I need it’s that part of me that again, is my person, I want everyone to like me and I want everything to be perfect. Yeah, And but I also feel like, you know, I. I want those people next to be like, Hey, just make sure we’re okay. Yeah. You know, I’ve got all the confidence in the world, but I’m still not going to ever let up on not having a person right next to me and right next to them that are at the highest level of play that I can find because I can have all that comes.

Austin –
My confidence is based on, you know, checks and balances along the way. Absolutely. One bad piece could ruin the entire thing.

Chris –
What do you feel like you have? I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it from this perspective, but do you feel like you have the leadership and the ability to change an industry from where you sit today? Like, do you feel like your voice matters in the industry? I mean, I feel like you don’t feel like that, but I feel like you I told you this the day we met.

Chris –
I was like, Bro, you need to be on stage. You need to be teaching. You need to be developing what? Like what you’ve built. Because I think the industry is lacking the work ethic at times that it takes to provide the level of service that you do. But then there are times when I feel like you’re second-guessing of do you feel like you have the power to shift an industry.

Austin –
I feel like the way we do it is the way it needs to be done. And I feel like Stacy and I will talk sometimes and I’ll say, What’s the point of being really good at this if it always comes back to you? And that means that you’re not helping other people. And, you know, for me, leadership has taken longer and it’s going to continue to.

Austin –
But, you know, I want to try I continue to be better at it when my other team members, people, Sarah Taylors, work on my team for a long time and, you know, and me and Sarah and I tried for so long to shield Sarah from some of the things that were associated with what it takes to be in a position like I’m the nights, the weekends, the constant phone calls.

Austin –
I apologized. I don’t know. I felt like I needed to until I came to her and like, hey, like, I want you to be me. Like, I want, you know, as we grow like I want this to be the last job you ever have. And she’s like, I want that more than anything. And I’m like, I never asked that question.

Austin –
I tried to shield, you know, someone who’s been loyal to perfectly. Seven, eight, eight years.

Chris –
Yeah.

Chris –
And it comes from a place of love. I don’t think that this is an I mean, I think there are pricing managers that, like, are afraid that their team is going to produce some. I don’t think that’s you. I think you’re more protective you know Did that come when you were coming up? Did your mom protect you in that sense?

Austin –
No, She threw me to the fire. She was like, you.

Chris –
You go figure it out. Yeah. Was that the best thing that ever happened?

Austin –
They were there. You know, they were there in the sense of you know, they were that backstop. There was never going to let me fail. Yeah, You know, but like the good call, I need help with my mortgage payment kind of thing, you know? And, you know, it wasn’t really thrown to the fire kind of thing. And so as a dad now, you know, you kind of go through some of that.

Austin –
Like, you know, I’ve been successful and I want my kids to be successful. But I’m also I also know the times when I didn’t reach out when I probably could have and get some support or help. But I am like, I can I need to figure this out. Like, I need to get through these things on my own.

Austin –
Like, I’ve got to you know, I’ve got to concentrate to get better. Like because if I, call and I get help or support, then I’m no better than I was when this thing started.

Chris –
Do you want your kids? Would you be proud if your kids came into the same position as you and came up like this?

Austin –
I would be proud. I would be very, very proud of my kids as 42 years old like me, that they have the same mindset I do. I’d be very proud. I’d hope they didn’t make some of the mistakes that I made along the way. But then again, I’m like, I don’t I wouldn’t I would never want to go through all of it again, but I wouldn’t change any of it.

Chris –
Oh, absolutely. I mean, that’s who you are.

Austin –
Yeah, but there’s some of the things that you do that you just don’t want to, you know, you want to try to protect your kids from. But the other side of it, it’s like it’s a part of what you do and how you grow. Absolutely.

Chris –
And you don’t want them in Spain doing the things you did.

Austin –
Oh, that’s all right.

Chris –
You know, the thing with kids like it is for guys like us, like I grew up hungry, right? And we grew up in a different mindset than our kids did. And at least that’s how I worry about mine not being as hungry as I have because they have a little bit better, you know, situation and growing up than I did.

Chris –
Do you worry about that with you or do you feel like I do come up with the same?

Austin –
Yeah. I mean, my my, my dad worked a ton, you know, he was in the Air Force. It was a funny story about him. So he retired from the Air Force where he flew, attends, you know, the Tank Killers, I think a Gatling gun ball, the school in third grade. That’s all. I get expelled for it right now.

Austin –
You know, the greatest kid in a show and tell and you know, so he was never able to you know, we were every three years we’d move. He was just he was a worker. He was just he was a hard, hard worker. When between that time and the time he was in the airlines was substitute teaching at my school.

Austin –
It was always there was coaching me in football and stuff, always involved. When the airline’s gone four days home for two or three, you know, when they had the time, when pilots had to retire at 60, he would work as much as he can from 56, 57, 58, 59. Then they extend it to 65. Oh, wow. And so, you know, you’d see that, but then you’d also see like he’d focus so much on work, and my mom’s in there at home.

Austin –
Yeah. You know, and but he that’s, his, his work ethic is just it’s, it’s so strong. And the funny part is, is that he was up here trying to look and that’s a new home before he moved in, and Chandler and he started a new home sales agent in there talking about you know being a pilot. And for the longest time, I met as an airline pilot with Southwest Airlines.

Austin –
And the guy, you know, found out he was a fighter pilot and for like 45 minutes, the guy’s so enamored by him. And I’m looking at him like, what the hell is my problem? Like, for 15 years, my dad was one of the biggest badasses in the world, flying the tank Killer plane. Yeah. And I’m calling him a measly airline pilot.

Austin –
Now, for the last 20 years of my life, not as a fighter pilot, but I think killer gun bullets, you know. But I do, you know, really modest through Air Force and moving around a lot and then he would he stayed in it for a long time before I retired lieutenant colonel in my time here in Tucson like he’d set up a good life for us, you know?

Austin –
And so I was really young when, you know, they were paycheck to paycheck and stuff like that. So he worked hard so that probably we didn’t have to do a lot of that stuff. And You know, when my struggles came more at a time when I was 20 to 30, you know, that’s where I really tried to figure some stuff out when I could have just not and just been a, you know, a piece of shit, I think.

Austin –
So I look at my son and I struggle with like, how could I communicate to you that hard work is so important and how can I communicate?

Chris –
I think he watches it. I mean this as you did. I mean, I think your work ethic probably comes from the fact that you watched your dad in a cycle. Right. And I also think that it’s why you’re coaching your kid’s football and you’re and you’re involved in a way that maybe our parents weren’t. Right. Like, I don’t have a relationship.

Chris –
You know, men are different than we were then. We were brought up in especially military. My dad was military as well, but we didn’t I don’t have the relationship that I have with my kids, like the kind of conversations that I have those did not exist.

Chris –
Likewise. You know, it’s crazy.

Austin –
I like I look at my son and I sit there and I’m just like, I want like I want in 20 years you to call me your best friend. That’s it. It’s like I want to be your dad. I want to be your leader. I want to guide you. You’re going to have to figure some stuff out.

Austin –
I want to take, you know, the things that I’ve learned that you know, the things that I did wrong, and help you not to make those mistakes, but mistakes also. You know, you learn from mistakes. So you’re going to make some in that sense. So it is that you struggle with it. How do I protect you? But how do you still grow in your own person that I’m proud of?

Austin –
And I still don’t know the coaching component I could stay involved with. So it’s like I have a chance to kind of be in there with them. I’m really proud of the kids for just who they are as people. You know, they save being assholes until they’re at home, so that’s good. But like in school with friends and stuff, like they’re, they’re good people.

Austin –
And if we can continue down that path, I’ll be proud. But I do think sometimes I’m like, you know what? If, if Brody has my thought process at 4242, I’ll be proud after like.

Austin –
I’ve done a good job and I feel like my parents shaped my thought process, you know, without a doubt. You know, maybe I didn’t always make all the right decisions, but I always came from a good place, you know, And that to me is, you know, trying to figure out the hard work component kind of on my own.

Austin –
And, yeah, subconsciously, maybe it’s just like, you know, dad to pick up another trip and go fly again and get up at 4:00 in the morning and drive to Phenix and fly out of Phenix, a dead head over to Nevada to. You know, that can’t be fun. Yeah. You know, the schedule, he would kind of go through a check, right?

Chris –
Absolutely.

Austin –
Every six months.

Austin –
Ray that your career is on the line. Yeah. If you don’t pass your check. Right. And then a military background, you know kind of in there behind that, you know and then my mom just had a type-A personality. You get shit done, have a personality, and hold people accountable. Personality, you know, And that’s why people loved her. So if I could be a combination of those things, you know, I’ll be really happy.

Austin –
And, you know, I see a lot of that in my wife, too. You know, if our kids can be a combination of who we are, then then I’ll be really happy. But it’s a fun time right now, you know?

Chris –
Well, it’s a fun time. I mean, as parents, would you say it’s a fun time in the industry?

Austin –
You know, in a weird way. And I had this guy had a curtain call yesterday and, you know, a lot of gloom in the industry and stuff with what’s going on. I said for the last two years, you know, I can’t wait until the parties until the music stops. And I can’t wait until this gets really difficult again.

Austin –
And you’re going to see such a big separation and. I’m telling the people that I work with. I’m like, If you could make it through this because I’ve seen it, you’re going to be so well rewarded. But you’ve got to find a way to make it through it. Yeah, You know, and for some people that means I’ve got savings, I’ve got a working spouse, you know, I can call mom and say, make my mortgage payment.

Austin –
I don’t fault however you get through this if you can get through this. Still, when this market stabilizes or returns, you know, assuming it’s not like April, but if this isn’t extended for your time, you will be very, very well rewarded. And the reason I’ve been looking forward to an environment like this is that the thing that people want now more than ever is they want someone that knows how to do loans.

Chris –
You’ve got to be a professional man. Yes. I mean, that’s it.

Austin –
I’ve said it’s, you know, pardon me if this is you and you are in the market to buy a house, but if you’ve got an 800 credit score, 20% down on a $200,000 W-2 job, you’re probably not buying a house right now. You’re sitting there trying to see where this thing is going, you know, who’s out there trying to buy a house right now.

Austin –
They either got underwritten out of the market or got priced out of the market. They hurt us a little bit easier. They are. And so.

Chris –
It’s yeah.

Austin –
It’s difficult, though. It’s so hard now that I’ve seen it in a long time. And I ask for everyone’s worst loans and I’m sitting here saying, wow, loans are really tough. Yeah, but, you know, I tell my team, Hey, if this is tough for us, what do you think everyone else is going through?

Chris –
Absolutely.

Austin –
And I’m like, I can’t sit there and be a phony and say that I haven’t been sane for two years. I can’t wait for this market. And then in this market, hide. You can’t hide. I get I need to be out there saying, hey, these are difficult. They’re more difficult than they’ve ever been. You should call me.

Austin –
No one is better than we are than doing this, you know, And there’s a.

Chris –
Confidence in you saying that and I love that because I think it’s super hard for people to have the courage to get up and do that. I mean, people are free. You’re a good example of this. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have done that.

Austin –
I wouldn’t have, no. And it started with me finding the people with that I had confidence. Yeah. That I can kind of go out there and do it. And once they had confidence in me, then it really changed things too. I mean, but you talk about if you had an ops staff that’s built on the I got it, then go sell the upstart.

01;00;28;24 – 01;00;30;27
Speaker 3
That’s it. Right. Let’s talk process.

Austin –
You know that you give me an opportunity to give me a lead. I will figure it out. You know, I heard a guy say something once. I loved it. He said never a no, always a hassle. That’s it. That’s it. It’s like, hey, how three years now? Maybe three years, I don’t care. But if you give extra attention to that person.

Austin –
Yes. Because guess what? That person who just spent the extra 20 minutes going over credit plan with when they were 498, they’re not going to qualify for a home in two years. Yeah, you know, but they’re like, I don’t know what to do. I’m like, okay, well, let’s do this. Can you do this for the next 30 days? Yeah, start with that.

Austin –
That’s a follow-up in 30 days. Guess what? That person might go to work the next day or might call their parents or might tell their siblings, Hey, this guy actually helped me out with this. So we owe it as an industry to not sit there for the last two years. Every time the phone rang, the answer is yes.

Austin –
You have to know what the hell you’re doing. Should I refer to it? Yes, or have rates ever been this? You know, these lowest rates were a big yes. Yes. Should I buy this house? Did you get to accept a contract? Yes. You know. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And you don’t have to know what you’re doing in that sense.

Chris –
Well, what happens with a lot of people now is that if I can coach anybody through this podcast, it’s a lender never ghost the people that don’t qualify. That’s the worst. And we do so many deals. Like like, yeah, I went with my lender. They never me back. Well yeah because think because you probably don’t qualify but I’m going to show you how right And so you know, my advice is any time you have to you can’t do the deal today, then your job is to give them a path on when they can do it and how they can do it.

Chris –
Because what you’re looking for is a referral from that person. It says that you know, Chris or Austin was really good. They couldn’t help me. Yeah, but. But they can help you, right? And if you can get referrals off of declines, then that’s what it’s all about. But I think people forget that. One concept is don’t say no, tell me how.

Chris –
And I think that’s beautiful. So I can go on and on with you. There are so many other topics that I wanted to talk about, but there are two things I want to tell you. And you know, before we wrap this up, number one are three things I should say, but number one is I think that you are a leader in the industry and I think the industry needs your voice.

Chris –
I think the industry needs to know who Austin is. And that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to hopefully get you on and inspire you to tell your story. And it doesn’t have to be in the sense of use. Austin Because I’m good. It’s just the mindset that you’ve created, you know, everything that you’ve done in your career leading up to now, and you made the transition and the leadership, and we’ve talked a lot about how much you care about being a leader and how, you know, you and I were talking a couple of years ago and you were doing your first sales and you were like.

Chris –
I even got a little nervous about that. And like hearing those things from the guy who’s doing 200 million is cool to hear because that’s a vulnerability that I don’t think we lead with at times. And I think that people can associate with that and people can understand that and lean into it. And I just love the way you tell your story.

Chris –
And, number two is I think your mom would be extremely proud to see where you’ve come and I know and I just know that in watching your story, and every time we talk, it comes up. But I just, I know that she’s watching you and I know that she’s extremely proud of what you’ve created and what you’re doing for the industry.

Chris –
And I hope that you crossed a path to get comfortable and continue to tell your story because I really think the industry needs it. Lastly, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to share with me and the people that are listening to your story and being here today because you traveled pretty far to live with me.

Chris –
And I appreciate that man. So thank you.

Chris –
28 Yeah, your $200 million producer, bro. I mean, this is like to have you here is a big deal, so I really appreciate it, man.

Austin –
I’m a fan. You know, you’re a leader in the industry. You know, I think the number of leadership qualities you have and yeah, and part of, you know, the tough transitions that transition from player to coach, you know, as you know, and you’ve done it really, really well. Thank you for that sense. So, you know, I like to align with the people that, you know, you could be proud of in the industry that you could point to and you could be like, Hey, man, those guys are doing it the right way.

Austin –
And, you know, you take care of people in the markets business. And so I appreciate you have I really appreciate the kind words, especially on my mom appreciate just the opportunity to get a little vulnerable and B on the podcast thank you.

Chris –
Man, we’ll do it some more I really would love to at some point maybe do some IG lives with you. I think that you know honestly I mean just the industry needs to know your mindset on lending and how hard it is, but how important it is that when you put your name on something, that’s your reputation in the marketplace.

Chris –
And you know, I say it because if somebody is somebody that I hire, that my company starts to do a bad job in the marketplace, that impacts everybody, that impacts, you know, all of our reputations. And so everyone needs to have a level of standard that they’re doing their business on. And I think you’ve crushed it in your numbers show it.

Chris –
I mean, to do 200 million for a guy that is not out doing video and out marketing like and at times was afraid to even say he was a lender is remarkable. Imagine what will happen when you turn it up man and I can’t wait to see that. So thank you, dude. And thanks for coming on, man. It means a lot to me.

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