Chris –
All right. Welcome to the Chris Medellin Show. I am here with my man. Minh Nguyen, Minh. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Minh –
Thank you for having me.
Chris –
Well, dude, I got to tell you. So why I asked you to be on the show today is because you and I, there was a point in time where we worked at the same company and we never really connected when you worked here. And I didn’t understand the magnitude of what you were doing for our industry. So you are you have launched these channels on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube all around.
Chris –
And the channel is called What’s a Mortgage? And you have taken a mortgage and simplified it for the general community to understand what it’s like to get a mortgage.
Chris –
You just simplified the mortgage process and understanding what mortgage is to the general public and the communities that we’re serving. And so I have started this podcast around diversity, and it’s a breakthrough series that I’m proud of because it allows me to talk to people like you who are doing something for the community that makes sense and helps.
Chris –
So you were an originator. You’ve been in mortgage since 2003. You’ve been through cycles. If you’ve been in the mortgage industry that long, we’re just entering another cycle and you’re out there in a community helping people, building a marketing engine to help other originators grow their business. And so if anybody who is in lending wants to learn what it’s like to build and build and be an influencer in the mortgage space, then is the guy to talk to cement.
Chris –
Thank you so much for being here today. I’m excited, man, because this is like for those of you that don’t know me and I don’t know each other that well. So as we go through this process, this is going to give us a really good opportunity to meet each other. So thank you so much for being here, man.
Minh –
Of course. Thank you for having me. As I said, you have this amazing energy about you. I know we worked at the same company, but I think I got to enjoy you as a person. When we were out in Las Vegas for the conference and there was something about you. Now, this guy is like he’s driven, but he has this magnetism about him.
Minh –
Like, Oh, I want to be around this guy. I become better just being around him.
Chris –
Dude, that’s exactly. It’s so funny, but that’s exactly how I feel about you, man. I watch what you’re doing on Tik Tok. You do these things with your wife, and I see the energy between you two. And it’s so fun to watch. I mean, you’re putting out, like, for an edge for being an educator in the mortgage space.
Chris –
You’re putting out such entertaining content that I enjoy watching it. Like and you know, you and I are in the industry, so it’s not fun to watch industry content, but to see what you’re doing. I’m interested in it and here’s a funny thing. So the next day after we hung out at the Ford event that night, somebody I don’t know who it was, but somebody texted me a picture.
Chris –
It was like a random picture that they sent of you and me dancing. I was like, Did you get that same one?
Minh –
No, I didn’t give that one. But I remember we were dancing.
Chris –
Yeah, I thought, oh, well, I don’t remember that all that well that you and I were out there dancing, so. What a fun time, dude. So, Ben, tell me a little bit about what you’re doing in the space and how you got started. And I want to go back to the inception of this idea of I’m going to start a channel.
Chris –
I’m going to help educate the, you know, the community on what it is to get a mortgage and how that took off. I’d love to hear about your journey there. And honestly, I appreciate you doing this for us.
Minh –
Of course. Of course. Of course. And then you need I’m here for you. So it all started, I remember because I’m telling a story. It all started back in 2017 when I was a wee pup and I’m getting it started in 2017 in 2017 I had my own mortgage company. I mean, I went out, I left the company and I started my own company and I became a direct lender.
Minh –
You know, I had a couple of teams that were doing 10 million, I guess, a small, direct lender, and they all decided to leave one by one. They also decided to leave because they found a better deal. You know, these guys were with me for a couple of years, and when you are a leader, you never hire. You never think that someone would leave you even if you gave birth to them in the mortgage industry or you took them from selling shoes.
Minh –
So satellite dishes, selling precious metals, whatever industry, you yanked them out of and you turn them into successful loan officers. They would leave you, but they all do eventually. And I don’t think they left because of any ill intentions. They left because they were doing what was best for them in their family. So when they all started leaving, I hired account execs to go out and meet with realtors for me and set appointments for me.
Minh –
But, you know, back then I was making good money. So let me hire these account execs. And of course, when they’re out there in the field, they were getting sniped by other lenders, come work for me or send me the deal instead and I’ll give you money. And through that I’m like, Not enough is enough. I’ve bought enough realtors lunches.
Minh –
I’m not making I’m not getting the business that I needed to get. And then I was watching Ty Lopez, you know that my Ferrari. Yeah. And I was thinking, hey, as he’s educating people, why can’t I get to the consumer before realtors and other lenders through social media? So on June 5th, 2017, when lenders when my loan officers were leaving me, I decided to start what’s a mortgage.
Minh –
So we started making video after video and it started from there back in 2017. My big break was in 2018, probably. So it was we started June May 2008 when it broke out on Facebook. Something happened and all of a sudden boom deal started rolling in and I was doing that from 2008 up until March or February or March, and that’s when I left for the US bank and I went from U.S. Bank then to Loandepot, and then I went independent after that.
Chris –
Well, this is okay. So I got to unpack. There are three segments that I want to unpack here. The first one is you come into the industry, you become a leader, you start to train and educate these these these entry level individuals that are coming into the mortgage space and teaching them how to become successful. You’re changing lives by bringing people into the industry and then they get poached or they leave you.
Chris –
And that one that’s one of the hardest things that I still don’t get over it that easily. Like when somebody leaves me, it’s like a breakup every single time. It’s like an emotional breakup that takes me time to understand and understand the relationship. And you start picking out every conversation you had and where did I go wrong?
Chris –
And, you know, and at the end of the day, it’s never really you. It’s just it’s that point in their life that they’d like. You said they didn’t do it from a personal perspective. They believe that that was the right thing to do for themselves and their family. But this is a cutthroat industry when you think about it.
Chris –
As you said, then you go on to get these account executives right, business development people who are out there setting up a plan, and then they get poached slow. So then and this is not something that is, you know, there’s not a mortgage person that’s listening to this that’s asking themselves, you know, has this not happened to me or will this happen to me?
Chris –
It’s going to happen. The moment you build a team, somebody is going to call them and try to poach them. And so as leaders, we have to always figure out who we’re working with and figure out how how to add massive value to them. But one of the things that you did is you built a brand out of the thought process of I’m tired of the lunches.
Chris –
I’m tired of chasing. I got to figure out a way to attract people to me. So here’s my question. What came first? Was it the applications or the viewership of what you were doing? Like because you said it happened out of the blue and was it just one day you went viral with viewership or did the viewership always stay the same?
Chris –
Except the applications just followed thereafter? Tell me about that process and what it was like.
Minh –
So it started with just making videos first and no one is watching. I remember going live and it was my mom, my dad, my brother, and my buddy’s parents, they were watching. So we started with and then they start sharing the information. Back then, of course, Facebook was still new. I did video after video, a lot more hitting. We did a video called Our Voice Video.
Minh –
Where I did this video, they’re like, Give me a v, v, I got your v, I got your V, give me an O. So I did this dance and it started picking up momentum. So back in 2008 and then 2008, I lost almost everything. I sold my house.
Chris –
In 2008.
Minh –
If you had nothing correct. So I sold my house. My wife took out the equity, and she moved on. She’s like, Hey, man, whatever you two figure out, I think it’s time that we just split for a second. I was like, you know, she didn’t leave me, but she’s like, Hey, maybe some things you need to figure out right now.
Minh –
Don’t have the stress of being a father and a husband. I moved back to my parent’s house. And this is when I went in 2017, I was making think about this three-quarter of a point and I was putting 65,000,020 18 moving back home. How humbling is that? I took half of the equity. I took some money.
Minh –
And because that video did decently well during that time on Facebook, I ran an ad on it. I went from spending no money and I spent, let’s say, 50 bucks a day and 100 bucks a day. And that’s all I needed. 100 bucks a day, I would think 100 bucks a day from March 2008, when I sold my house up until May in a burst through and the application started.
Minh –
Some applications were coming in, but in May just something happened where the video all of a sudden even I was doing paid advertising. I wasn’t getting that much view because I wasn’t spending so much money. But all of a sudden I see a million views, you know if you spend money on paid advertising, but if your content’s not good, it’s not going to produce.
Minh –
Well, I know guys who are spending way more than I did back then and they couldn’t get their content to go viral or for people to follow them because they spent so much money on content and all of a sudden application after application and I went from doing nothing to May. I did like three loans. By November I was doing 18 units a month as a loan officer.
Chris –
Wow. I mean, one year there’s something. There’s so much there. You dude, you drop bombs, bro. Like you’re you know, I’m trying to decide which direction to go, but, like, okay, let me take it back a little bit and want to take this in steps. Talk to me about the moment when, you know, because we went through a cycle in 2008 and that cycle, would you consider that a worse cycle than the 2008 kind of mortgage?
Chris –
You know, the compression that went through that that we probably felt as the cycle more so than the industry or the communities did. Or was 2008 worse for you? What? Which one was worse?
Minh –
2008 was worse.
Chris –
Okay.
Minh –
728 Lenders were shutting down business right now businesses are mortgage covers are consolidating 0708 they were shutting down guidelines would change while you’re in escrow I remember you were by now if you’re if someone is doing a loan and it’s in a declining market, the lender might after bigger down payment. Mm-hmm. So you went from 3% down to 10% down, and you’re in escrow and the buyer doesn’t have the money.
Minh –
You know, PMI companies, hey, the rate change to PMI, because why would I insure a property if it’s upside down? So they would increase it or they would want a bigger down payment as well, or they would just go out of business. So now business is constricting, but the business, the mortgage industry is still in business. The mortgage industry was not in business.
Minh –
There was one week in 2007 and that’s why I say 2007 or 2008. There was one week in October 2008, and there were no mortgages sold on Wall Street, none for a whole week. That is how bad it wasn’t. Oh, seven.
Chris –
Wow. I didn’t even know that statistic. But that is madness. Right. And so being in the industry, you know, there’s a lot of trust among people like you who have been in the industry, who know what the cycles are. And we’ve hit several throughout our history, but one hit you. You know, when you go back to 2018, what was it about that year that impacted you to the point that you went from, you know, having one of your best years, 65 million to moving into your parent’s house?
Chris –
How did that impact you personally and how did you dig yourself out of that?
Minh –
I was in a depression, I’m telling you right now. I was in a depression and the world was at my fingertips. I was 20, 65 million. I did it in 2015, like 14, 15, 16, and 17. So I had three amazing years. I became my lender and of course, some bad things happened, including taxes. But, you know, just it dwindled.
Minh –
Whatever I had left, I gave to my wife. I’m like, take it you have a son. You know, I just need a little bit to get by and I’ll and I’ll find a way to crawl out of this. So I’m back home and I’m just in this misery at my parent’s house in March I mean, in March 2018, when the house was sold and I’m still making content.
Minh –
And, you know, I was whatever money I had left, I was paying two people. I was paying one person to do all my graphics. One graphics were bigger back then than there are now. One person to video, edit and run my ads. So every month I was forking out six grand a month that I didn’t have living at my parent’s house.
Minh –
I bought, I ate whatever my mom cooked so I don’t have to spend money. And I ran three grand a month in ads, so I spent nine grand a month when I had nothing. So what are some stories? I don’t even want to hear it because whatever money I made, if I may, nine grand I spent on, you know, I used some of my savings.
Minh –
I held on as much as possible, but I only use the money. I didn’t. I lived in my parent’s house. I had to park in a parking structure. And there I was working, doing Lenny on my buddy’s company. I would park far away in a parking structure so I wouldn’t have to pay $20 for parking or pay $100 a month for a parking pass so I could spend money running on ads.
Chris –
This is interesting because right now we have entered a cycle and there is a large number of loan officers in the industry today that have never been through a cycle in the last ten years. They’ve been winning, right? They’ve been in a winning. You felt it so hard that. But even. No matter, you’re lost your family, you know, your move.
Chris –
You lost your house, you moved into your parent’s house. And I’m pretty sure with all that and you said it yourself, there was a depression and we’re going to talk about that in a second. But no matter what, you are smart enough to say, I’m not cutting my marketing budget. I’m doubling down on it right now.
Chris –
People are looking at their budgets and they’re cutting out marketing. What do you what is your what do you say to that, to that low today that is looking at their expenses? They’re having a rough few months because the market shifted on them and they’re cutting their marketing budget. What are your thoughts on that?
Minh –
You’re on the inside. I feel really happy because right now, as our ads are running, I’m the only one on the Internet. I am dominating the Internet. My viewership is skyrocketing. ROP Rocket Loandepot guarantee no one spending money on mortgage marketing on Instagram and TikTok because I trust myself, I check they’re their ads, yet I’m the only one spending money, so I am spending more than those three major companies on the internet running ads right now.
Minh –
So as everyone’s pulling back, I’m spending more as they’re spending money to go to Tom Ferry. Mike, theory, going to all these conventions, spending their thousands of dollars. I’m like, keep going. All those things burn through your money. I’m going to put ads up. I’m going to let my face be all over the Internet. Let’s cut back some costs, cut back on some comp.
Minh –
Let me go ahead and dial back. But keep the ad money going because my face is everywhere and it’s intentional marketing. It’s not just organic marketing because organic you might get a lead from another state that might be a $30,000 mobile home. I spend my money in all of California. So from Northern California down to San Diego, it’s this.
Minh –
That’s why when you go to conferences, people rave about me because they’ve seen my face. After all, it’s just this. No one else is competing against us right now in California with you.
Chris –
I hung out with you in Vegas and people know you. I mean, you have an I mean, you’re the dude that people know because you have put it out there and you’re educating. And that’s the thing that people don’t get that when you figured this out, it was all about and you couldn’t you can’t do what you did today because everybody tries to copy it already.
Chris –
Right. But you have the momentum around it. So so tell me why you leaned into the basics like you use the Bowie, you leaned in to like, how do I teach people how to make this so simple? What, what? What came, you know, how did that originate in your mind?
Minh –
So what I did was I reached out to past clients and asked them what was the hardest part about getting a mortgage. The uncertainty. Uncertainty. It’s like you get a pre-approval letter. It means nothing. Anyone could just go on Microsoft Word and type of preapproval letter. So what was the biggest pain about getting a mortgage clearing income assets?
Minh –
They’ll figure out credit. It is what it is. But that view, even until everything’s automated now, was the make-or-break year. And so I did a viewing video and I saw that like squashed all the problems. Yes. And literally how to get a view filled out correctly by your employer. What information do they need, especially if you’re using overtime or a bonus?
Minh –
And that video pretty much took off. Of course, video is everything that is automated now. Now there are other problems, other challenges. But back then it was a video. So you just have to talk to your people, your clients or you’re if you don’t have clients, your family member or friends or we walked out on the streets and we ask you, hey, do you have a mortgage?
Minh –
Your mortgage was the hardest part of getting a mortgage. And they would tell us and we would write it down. You know.
Chris –
Dude, one of the things that I love about doing these conversations is because what you do, what your story is, is about to resonate with somebody out there that might be feeling that same pain that you felt and how you dug yourself out of it. I try to build a like this, this content that that will get created from this podcast.
Chris –
And this podcast itself is, is done because I want to inspire, even if it’s just one person to figure out, you know, you are through something that happened to you how to dig themselves out of a hole that they may be in. And so, if you don’t mind, I want to take you back to the time when you were living at your parent’s house.
Chris –
You’re dropping nine grand. You don’t have your family the way you know, the way that you probably envisioned. And you’re waking up in the morning and there’s got to be times when you’re waking up in the morning, you just don’t want to get out of bed. It’s just not the life that you thought you were going to lead.
Chris –
How did you get yourself out of that? What was a do you remember if you can go back to that moment and what were the things that you would say to yourself or who are the people that were around you that helped you through that?
Minh –
So when it happened, yeah, I was it was hard to roll out of bed. I saw my kid once a month from 2018 and march up until November once a month. I was too ashamed. And when I saw him, I was so stressed out about money that I didn’t enjoy hanging out with him, and that caused more issues with my wife and me.
Minh –
When you’re, at least be here mentally for him. But as a provider, you’re all over the place. You’re not focused even with your kid, because you’re like, How do I get back on my feet? So dealing with all that I had, the people around you, you know, you start your list of people around you diminishes when you have when money is not there, you know, and they’re making money when they all these guys left me, they left me with some bad loans, too.
Minh –
That’s why I lost so much money because I owed 1.7 million as well. And out of that debt while I was building. So I had a friend. His name is Carlos Velasquez. He’s like my best friend. But he believed in me. He was there for me and he encouraged me in those dark times. And even my wife was there to encourage me.
Minh –
Even though we didn’t live together. She knew, like, you’re going to bounce back, man. You have it in you. Like, there’s no way you’re not going to bounce back. So these two people believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. And honestly, I’m a man of faith, but not a crazy man of faith. I mean, went to church.
Minh –
And of course, when when you lose it all, God becomes the first thing in your life. And literally, the hand of God came down and he got me. I was able to reverse a lot that the 1.7 million that was my priority. How do I reverse 1.7 million? I took some L’s and I reverse 1.1 million.
Minh –
So I got about six, 700 grand left. And I slowly chipped away at it as I was funding loans too. But yeah, it was the two people having faith and not giving up because they believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself anymore. And that is the hardest thing that defines what my parents are like.
Minh –
See, you should have finished college, you know. So it wasn’t my parents. It was, you know, my best friend who I wasn’t friends with them back then. For some reason, they like God and sent him to encourage me and my wife. These two people, you know, believed and pushed through with me.
Chris –
Dude. And of course.
Minh –
I had an I had the guy paid for you to, you know, is one of my business partners. Later on, he passed away. His name is Andrew. And since I wanted to give up and you know what? Let me give up. I’ll be okay. Just walk away. He’s like, No, man, just hold on. It’s going to happen. We got to believe.
Minh –
And you know, the voice might. These voices in my ear pushed me through.
Chris –
Oh, my gosh, dude. I mean, this is like this is this is to me is what people need to hear. Right? And then you came out the other side with your family. You know, you told me the story. And I was like, but wait, I see you doing all this content with your wife. And I can’t even imagine the happiness that you guys have on your face is doing the content.
Chris –
It’s such a dynamic that it looks to me like that can’t be fake. There’s such a strong bond with you, too. And to see where you’ve been, to know where you’ve been, to get to, this is the icing on the cake. Let me ask you a question. Do you think are you fearful of the loss again?
Chris –
In other words, if the industry were to be impacted today, do you have the same fears that you had back then, or do you think to bring it on because you’ve been through it and you can get out? Do you feel like you have that playbook now?
Minh –
Oh, yes, I have that playbook. I think other people know the playbook. They just don’t want to accept or embrace the playbook. You are noticed by every loan officer during this time. No one’s taking a pay cut instead of making 100 bips. Why don’t you make 50 bips? Use the 100 before using the other 50 bills, put money into ads, and pull down back on the rate.
Minh –
Everyone still wants to make the 100 5000 bis. No one’s backing off on the cop. You got fat for the last two years. Pull back on comp, and maximize that money. You guys are with great company. I have no nothing negative to say about loan depot. The funds are there and they’re going to help you, but they can’t help you if you don’t help yourself by backing the f off on your comp.
Minh –
But now everyone wants to make the 150 bips and that’s why I was losing. You know, I’m taking less right now so I can spend more money on ads.
Chris –
Yeah, you got to. You have to figure out, I mean, you know, everything. You know, there is a budget that I have and I’ve increased the budget on marketing and, you know, trying to figure out how do you cross over into, you know, into being a household name is figuring out and you figured this out, dude. I mean, let’s talk about the numbers real quick because I don’t think people understand the scale.
Chris –
Somebody is listening right now that’s like never heard of what’s a mortgage. I’ve never seen this dude. Let’s talk about the impacts that you’ve made in your life. Can you walk me through, like, how many how much viewers you have and how many millions of people have seen your content? You know.
Minh –
I know that I don’t know the details, the detail details, but I know our record-breaking video, which was our viewing video, hit about 2.5 million views between 2008 and 17 up until 2009 when we retired the video you retired?
Chris –
Well, what was it?
Minh –
And when Andrew passed away in 2019, he put the video together. So we retired the video. After that, it had like 2.5 million views and that was done. Now our average we average about a couple hundred thousand views a month on our Instagram page. So that’s like our bread and butter. Even though we start on Facebook, you know, most of our ads are on Facebook, but now it looks like Tik Tok has kind of taken over organically with the blend of running ads.
Minh –
It’s pretty much our main bread and butter right now. The viewers that come through Tik Tok through Instagram that buy organically happen like this. So, you know, it’s been amazing. But through all this, I remember at our peak in 2002 thousand, 2020, or 2021, when we left Home Depot, we were funny about the branch doing about 70 million.
Minh –
We’re about 35 million of that 75.
Chris –
70 million all from your ad spend and even ad spend. But ad creation is correct. Capture people. So when you were doing your lives, you would go on and just answer questions that people would have about their mortgages. Am I am I right?
Minh –
I know I had an agenda. So when I went on what I went live. My goal was to go live. So people would download my ultimate mortgage guide when they download. My God, I started my email list. Gosh, am I? And I started and I got their phone number. So I started texting and emailing them. The goal is to use the platform to pull everybody off of it so you can engage them as a community.
Chris –
Yep. So so let’s talk about that because when you’re building content and you’re building an audience and you know that you can attract people to you, then what you’re trying to do is figure out a way, a creative way to capture them. And a lot of people use a free guide, as you said, or, you know, a training class or they do something to capture something free, to capture an email and a phone number.
Chris –
And then you can capture an email and a phone number. Now you have a tribe of people that are following you that trust you, and now it’s a matter of conversion. Where do you take that group of people to the next phase of the relationship? But you’re truly helping them. And when you create meaningful education content, then you’ve built trust and I remember hearing about this back when you were at Loandepot.
Chris –
I remember I think it was Alec that had interviewed you guys and I had watched and you guys were talking about the fact that you would have people come to you that were in process with someone else to ask you guys questions about their deal and then you would end up doing the deal because they were almost wasn’t that their loan officer on the other end wasn’t available.
Chris –
It was that you created a platform to make it easy to deal with you and talk to you. And you were accessible and fun and it’s like, well, by the way, why don’t you just do my deal then? Because now you know you. Because you become a little bit of a celebrity, if you will when they can watch you on a TV type of platform.
Chris –
And now they have access to answer, you know, do a Q&A with you. Is that how a lot of your business came to fruition?
Minh –
Yeah, a lot of it. Our business came through. Why didn’t we didn’t chase the business? We just gave out information. Gave out information. And it comes to a point where a person if they’re desperate enough for an answer, they’re going to reach out. That means they’ve taken their guard down. You know how easy it is for someone to use your service when their guard is down.
Minh –
So it comes to a breaking point. When there’s a trust, for some reason they just don’t trust their lender, their realtor, because they’ve seen you on the Internet for so long and you haven’t asked them for anything except to ask you, ask you, send me a question. You have it. You want an answer. And that broke that barrier.
Minh –
And that’s how the business comes in when that bury of trust is broken. Not trust. I mean the trust in you. That’s where the business comes in. So much easier than when they don’t trust you. They’ll trust you more than their lender. For some reason, they went with their lender, but that trust isn’t there still because the person knows this person is making a commission from me.
Minh –
That’s why they’re answering my call means answering my messages and he’s not getting paid for me. Okay, now I’m going to make my I want me to make commissioner.
Chris –
Yes. And people understand that. People respect that. Hustle people want you to benefit versus somebody else. If you’re making yourself available. And you’ve helped me, you know. So I think that’s where it all lies. So now if we go into your you are a mortgage originator and you started to just create content. And now here’s the interesting thing about building content and being in a creative mindset when you’re in the mortgage, you’re doing one of two things.
Chris –
You’re using 2 to 2 pieces of your brain, you’re using the analytical side because you got to work the numbers and make sure that you know the name you’re putting on that application and that brick wall is worth something. And hopefully, you know, you did a good job with that. And then the second thing is you have to sell you have to go out and create relationships for doing lunches with realtors and your bond, you’re buying leads for realtors, doing whatever it is that you do to create it.
Chris –
But then there’s this third piece that you figured out that you can market. And if you can market people, there’s a quote out there that said something along the lines of, if you can market the right way, then you’ll never have to sell a day in your life, right? Because now you’re connecting people to you. And that’s the ultimate goal of marketing.
Chris –
So when I look at what you did now you have gone from being an originator into a full-on marketing creator. And I think that the dream of so many people is to be able to create an attraction to the customer and bypass the realtor. And now you take those and you sell those to big banks and relationships.
Chris –
You know, with with with lenders. Well, how did that come about for you? Like when did you decide, okay, I’m going to go this route with my career?
Minh –
I think as a creator, eventually, you started to become more creative. Of course, for these bigger companies, there’s more red tape because they have to protect themselves. I’m not, like I said, nothing negative to say because they have so much red tape and we were picking up so much momentum, it was easier just to sell them the audience than to be under their umbrella because of the red tape that we dealt with.
Chris –
Now you’re telling me that Loandepot had a problem with you at one point doing tic talks, right? I mean, like, correct. Correct. I mean, it’s crazy because I don’t think that they care today, but like, but back then, you know, Tick Tock was so new and it was like, what is this? And what are these guys like? You guys are so ahead of your time, bro.
Chris –
It’s crazy. But so yeah, you were, you were having to deal with all the red tape. So then, then what happened?
Minh –
So that’s at that point, you know, there was a couple of loan officers who did leave the team I was on left their team. They were over our movement. Another one of your branches and loan people down to San Diego. They’re like, hey, can we get some leads too? So we thought it was a better idea just to get them the leads and then, you know, cost cross-country.
Minh –
So a lot of companies were reaching out. They left the main branch like, hey, we want what’s a mortgage buyer and, you know, clients, but we’re not out loan people. Can we still do that? Okay. This was a perfect time to do it.
Chris –
So.
Minh –
So once I had enough clients and clientele, I left.
Chris –
You made the pivot and you became a, you became to lead a lead aggregator if you will. Right. And so so from that perspective, how do you control or, you know, what does that feel like for them and the customer? So somebody does that impact your brand if the deal goes sideways or you sell that deal to somebody that, you know, they didn’t take care of it?
Chris –
Has that ever impacted your business?
Minh –
Definitely. And of course, when that happens, I have a show face. I call them up. I’ve refunded some appraisals. I’ve paid for some pretty gems, you know, so I show face and of course, I have a talk with the lender. And I tell you, if this happens again, you either have to reimburse me or we’re pulling away because this can’t keep happening.
Minh –
You know, when someone that lender hires a new loan officer, we send someone to train them on how to understand our clients and what they’re looking for. We talk to the clients. We let them know, hey, you know, by looking at your situation, this is the perfect lender for you. But of course, a lot of times they know that I don’t work for that lender.
Minh –
They’ll look at my license and when they look it out, okay, cool. Like, do you work for them? They’re one of my partners. If there’s a challenge or if you don’t want to work with them, I completely understand. Always let me know if there’s an issue. And, you know, we have that relationship in the beginning. They know who my part, my referral partners are and they know, you know, where I stand.
Minh –
And, you know, we respect each other. And because of that, I think a lot of even the ones that don’t end up using us or they go with another company or they’re not happy, they watch what’s a mortgage? Because I still provide the education that if they went out with another lender, they knew what was going on the whole time.
Minh –
They knew what time it was.
Chris –
Absolutely. So I would imagine that these are this is nothing that you kind of imagined you’d ever have to deal with when you made the pivot. Like you had to continue to say, okay, I didn’t think that was going to happen. Like you think you’re going to give a lead away to take good care of it and you realize, okay, now I problem, I’m sure you have a contract now that that has like a code in there of some sort that people find when they’re going to accept your leads on how they’re going to perform against those.
Minh –
Correct? We have you know, we have a contract. Like if they don’t reply by a certain period, if after X amount of years, if they don’t close a lead, you know, or if know, the buyer or the lead wants to go with a different lender. We let them know why.
Minh –
And the reason may be and then we move on from that.
Chris –
I love that. And I think that that’s like when you have to start thinking about those types of things, that means you’ve done something well, you know because now you have this sub subgroup that you got to protect your brand and the fact that you built the brand to be able to have that protection around it, it’s amazing to me.
Chris –
So I want to go back to, you know because as we’ve gone through this segment, you know, there’s this thing that looms in the background and it’s like, how did you end up getting everything back and finding the success again? So, you know, you went through the success, then you went through the I would say like you’re rock bottom and then you’re now, you know, when did it turn when did you turn the corner that your family back and you know, you’re able to spend time with your son you know, from the perspective of you’re, you know, intentional now and you’re engaged.
Chris –
How did that how did you turn the corner with that?
Minh –
I think it was November 2018. So in March, we sold our house. I reverse buy 1.7 million back down to like six 700 grand and from March, moving forward, I was funding my deals here and there. And in March and in May, when I started hitting 18 units, I used every dollar I had to reverse all that money.
Minh –
You know, I had a couple of really big, big months and I reversed it all in November. I didn’t know anything else. I put away a little bit of money and we were just funding loans. So from November 2018, up until February March 2019, I killed it, you know, and then that time the things were still booming and but I was burnt out.
Minh –
So when I was burnt out, my Andrew, the young man passed away. His brother stepped in and offered, Hey, you gave me all these deals at US Bank because we didn’t do Jumbo back then. And of course, U.S. Bank did Jumbo. And I was handing out jumbos, you know, hand over fist, like, why don’t we take over everything for you and we give you a signing bonus and we get you to get X amount and boom, it was it took off.
Minh –
And of course, Jumbo was great, but the majority of our buyers were. The majority of our buyers were. FHA, conventional VA and that’s when we went through Loandepot but went through Loandepot. Here’s where I put my money, where my mouth is. I made sure my whole team got paid and I didn’t get a check until revenue start turning. So in August 2018, up until March 2019, I didn’t make a single dollar.
Minh –
I little nervous. My wife thought I was crazy, but then it boomed after that.
Chris –
So if I’m hearing you right, Loandepot brought your family back together again?
Minh –
Yeah, pretty much.
Chris –
Ladies and gentlemen, that is what it’s all about. And we are bringing families back home. Home is everything. I’m kidding. I’m not. There’s not a commercial for a loan. I just was I was like, okay, well, I can spin this, but no, dude, I love this. I mean, because I think that you’ve always as I’m listening to your stories, you’ve always had integrity in how you approach the business and everything that you’ve done with the business and I think one of the super important things, you know, for people to understand is that there’s a sacrifice that has to happen.
Chris –
And, you know, hindsight is always 2020, but we’re in there are many people right now that are in the thick of it and, you know, cutting off your marketing budget, you know, making increasing your pay when you should be doing the opposite is probably, you know, two of the main important things that I’m listening to with men is like, you have to be creating content.
Chris –
You have to be creating your brand and figure out ways that you can live as frugal as possible but never turn off the marketing engine. Am I hearing all that right, man?
Minh –
I mean, is it 100% like if I had to do it right now during this industry, this market, I would do I would know exactly what to do already. I would you know, I would live I know my wife and I would either rent a small place or rent out our house right now, go, go. If times are tough right now, we would run out of our house, move to our parent’s, my parent’s house, or her parent’s house, whatever money we’d have put into marketing.
Minh –
And as soon as the feds pull back on rates, we would make our money and then we would move back into our house.
Chris –
I was willing to do that today. Like, you’re like you’re just like, let’s go.
Minh –
Yeah, if it came down to that, that’s what we would do right now. I would not back off on marketing because right now no one else is spending money. So when everyone else is not spending money or whatever money they’re spending, they’re spending it on courses or conferences. I’m putting into ads when I hear about these these these memberships for ten grand, I’m like, there’s three months’ worth of ads, right, that you just blew your money on.
Minh –
Yes. You know, ads are everything. And these days, the cool thing is social media is all about a natural look. So we some of our ads, I film it from my phone and we turn it to.
Chris –
Ads on purpose. Yes.
Minh –
So of course, you can’t do everything that way. But it’s a blend. So don’t think that you need some 10,000 like a $5,000 camera. So, you know, crazy lens, you know, simple editing to cap cut. If you want to make it happen, you would make it happen.
Chris –
So amazing. So when you go into like when you’re looking at content today, who, if you don’t mind me asking you, who do you think is, is making a difference in the lending space about content? Like who should people be watching?
Minh –
If it was me, I would probably be watching the mortgage kitchen.
Chris –
Okay.
Minh –
He does a strategy called number disproportion.
Chris –
Okay.
Minh –
If and this guy I met with him a bright man, he was he was a model before that. He has a British accent. He’s been doing mortgages for two years. He has over 150,000 followers organically. You know, he just needs some paid business savvy behind him. He would own mortgages. He’s like, he’s from me since he’s from the UK, he doesn’t know how to talk to realtors to kind of, you know, get more business extract from them.
Minh –
He didn’t work out a great deal with his prior company. He has a better deal now with his other company. But even if he just fixed that change some of that he and me. All right. Now, the way he delivers content, you know, because as anxiety sometimes as a lender do you do dancing do you do sounds like do you mimic everybody else?
Minh –
This guy is an original voice and he’s killing it and he does a disproportionate where he the way he plays and teaches things, the way he guides people through it, the way he videotapes an edit, I’m telling you, this guy is like the beast.
Chris –
I got to check him out. I’ve never even heard of it. So this is good. I love that. I’m so glad I asked this question. Who is your avatar? Like, who is who are you trying to attract when you build content?
Minh –
Right now, I’m trying to attract homebuyers and middle-class homebuyers. I’m looking for conventional FHA, and VA buyers. So, Mike, I look at the middle class and say, I’m in California, I look at people who are looking to buy between six, 700 grand and up. So what are their interests? What are they into? What emotions and feelings do they go through?
Minh –
And I try to make my content match that.
Chris –
Has any fault or is that where you always started?
Minh –
That’s it’s gone back to because of course when I was at U.S. Bank, we talked a lot about more jumbo stuff, more high balance stuff as we are where we are now. So we can make our viewers diverse to different lenders that we can bring the client to. So we go with conventional FHA, VA, most of our business still in California leaking, into Nevada and Arizona and Washington.
Minh –
But we find our clientele and we make the information to match our clientele and that’s our walk. Like I talk about people who have four KS because I want buyers now for one case, if a buyer has an a41k with $50,000 in it, that means they know how to save. They are responsible people. So we make videos for one K on IRAs, right?
Minh –
We make videos where we are assuming they are they know what position they’re in to buy. We don’t avoid credit repair. Now, when you talk about credit all the time, even though I help us go viral, I just did a video recently regarding the B of a video. I did it more to give back to the community because a lot of people ask, but I stay away from all that because that’s not the clientele that my audit and my referral partners want.
Minh –
And it’s your deal with a lot of people who are further away from buying I want buyers now. So I don’t talk about how to save money for a down payment on talk about building your credit. I talk about assuming they’re buying and what are they looking for. People who are buying, what are they looking for? They’re looking to make their payment cheaper.
Minh –
They’re looking to make the process better. They’re not I’m not trying to talk about saving money because that means I’m looking for a buyer, Generation Z, Y, X, Y, Z, or double omega or something. Right. That’s too far away.
Chris –
So so you said something that that because I saw your video on B of A. And so, you know, this is when we do this podcast and no telling you know when somebody is listening to A but B of A just released a product that is a zero down product. But it gives you some equity kind of out the gates and pays off.
Chris –
No, there’s no closing cost. And it’s amazing I mean, it’s like a dream product for a, you know, a family that’s looking for a home. And one of the biggest problems in the communities that we’re serving today is, you know, that when we talk about affordability when rates skyrocketed when rate room rates have skyrocketed as a response to what’s happening with inflation, seems that has not helped the consumer get into a home.
Chris –
It’s impacted them. And when you look at what are called low-level adjustors on loans, we’ve heard if I’m trying to get a family into, let’s say a single mother into a manufacturing home because that’s what she can afford, the number of points that she’s going to pay on that are astronomical and it makes it so unaffordable for them to do that.
Chris –
And so when you look at a product like this, it’s like a godsend, but it’s only in very specific markets. And I know all this because you taught me that in your messaging, right? And I was looking for it because I was waiting for I was I thought that you were hating on it. At first, I was like looking for like the hater to come out, but it was so like it was so educational and I was like, this is a cool product.
Chris –
Like, it’s a dream product for anybody who’s looking to it, for affordable housing. Is, is that do you see that affordable housing right now is one of the biggest things impacting your clientele? Is that what’s keeping people on the sideline or what’s impacted? You’re your customers right now?
Minh –
Yes, 100%. So the reason why I made the video is that I was giving back to the community. Who am I to hate on somebody that might not benefit me, a majority of my clients or viewers, but it’s going to impact someone else? I think through social media you’ll learn we are not in the other person’s shoes.
Minh –
We might think it’s a horrible product or a horrible idea, but it might benefit someone else. So who am I to shame it? I learned it recently. I don’t shame about being a renter anymore. I used to not say, you know, because how dare you not own a home? But I don’t. I’m not in their shoes. So my goal now is to, you know, treat everyone the same so this product might benefit people.
Minh –
And that’s why I don’t hate on it. You know, some people, do shame it. Well, you’re the one looking for homes and financing and getting your closing cost covered, but you don’t like the area who’s a snob now? You know, like if you’re not looking for them, you have other options. But who am I to say that this product is bad when it could benefit that one person and can change their life?
Chris –
Amazing that. But you’re exactly right. I mean, who are we? And maybe the reason that I had thought that, to begin with, was because I had seen an ad on like when it first got launched. I was looking at the comments underneath the ad, not yours, but the actual product itself. When it got launched or the article, there were so many people hating it, there was so much negativity around it.
Chris –
So when I saw your post, I was just immediately in my I went to, I wonder what he’s going to say, but I was like, actually, everything he just said sounds amazing, you know? And the way that you positioned it, I legit wanted to copy it because I was like, this is like I was inspired by it. And so I love what you’re doing.
Chris –
I love how you serve the communities and I love that you’ve been able to create a business and your journey is amazing and you know, I think for people that are out there that are suffering right now, you know, it is a testament to we are going to have our backs against a wall. And it’s the decisions you make during this period that is going to bring you to the next level.
Chris –
And the decision that he made was he had to put his head down and focus and invest and continue to invest in marketing to get his business back. And through that was able to get his family back. And so, man, I am so proud to be associated with you through this podcast and I appreciate you.
Chris –
And I, I know this is just the beginning of a friendship and a relationship with you, man because man, I’m, I’m so happy to just go deep with you and thank you for sharing such a personal story with me. I’m proud to see the business you’ve created, man, and I know you’re going to continue to have success.
Chris –
So thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Minh –
Oh, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Chris –
Where do people find you, brother?
Minh –
Go to Instagram or Tik Tok under. What’s a mortgage?
Chris –
What’s a mortgage? Don’t forget about YouTube because I made this my men everywhere. So. And thank you so much. What’s a mortgage dot com? Good luck with everything, brother. And I can’t wait to continue to talk to you. Thank you.
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