From the Top RM: Do you allow your forward mortgage salespeople to originate reverse mortgages, or is there a firewall that separates the two? PF: Our forward mortgage loan officers have two options. They can refer a borrower to one of our fulltime reverse mortgage specialists. I like this option because it allows the forward mortgage team to focus on their bread-and-butter product. It’s hard to specialize in multiple products, especially when they have different guidelines and sales cycles. The referring loan officer can hand over a name and a phone number and get paid a commission if the loan closes. The second option is a certification. If a loan officer wants to add reverse mortgages to his or her business plan, we require four things: 1) read Dan Hultquist’s book, Understanding Reverse; 2) complete five one-on-one training classes; 3) continue taking education classes offered by Academy and our investors; and 4) close a certain number of loans each year. If you’re only closing one reverse mortgage a year, there’s no way you can become an expert. RM: Your company does a lot of social impact work here and abroad. What can you tell us about that? PF: We try to be good stewards of our community and serve those around us. This gets back to inspiring hope— not just in ourselves, but in others. Let’s talk globally. Recently, our team members took time off and paid their way to Verde Sumaco, a small village deep in the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, to build concrete pathways. Being in the Amazon jungle, it’s so wet, and without these concrete pathways, you have to wear rubber boots all day, which is not ideal. These pathways improve the quality of life. It’s something small, but it’s having a huge impact on people’s lives. Academy operates an internal website where you can go and see what people are doing in their own communities across America. In Grand Junction, CO, for example, team members are facilitating dog adoptions and supporting and gathering supplies for dogs in need. We have read-a-thons and walk-a-thons to support St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. One of my favorite activities is food prep. We bring in many pallets of food. We put on our food prep gear—hairnets, masks and gloves—and make these packets that have just the right nutrient profile for those in need. We have 200 branches, and every branch participates. RM: Academy had a pretty decent year in 2022 with production increasing 45 percent from 2021. To what do you attribute that growth and how will you build on that success in 2023? PF: 2022 was a banner year. Like most companies, we benefited from high home values and low interest rates. How do we build on that success? We don’t reinvent the wheel, and we get back to basics. Last year was so easy in terms of qualifying borrowers that we didn’t focus on the basics. People are now scared of interest rates and the possibility that home values will drop, and there might be a recession. People see this negative news, stop what they’re doing, burrow into their holes and stop working. How is not visiting your referral partners going to help? How is not talking to potential clients going to help? It won’t. Visiting referral partners, teaching CE (continuing education) classes, talking to financial planners—in other words, getting out there and doing the work—are crucial. There’s always going to be a need. There’s always going to be a benefit. There’s always going to be a demand for reverse mortgages. I was talking with a loan officer who said she likes this market because many of her competitors are on the sidelines. She’s having more success today than ever. RM: Are there particular approaches to marketing and lead generation that you try to instill in your sales force? PF: I wrote down five things. One, become an expert. Our clients and referral partners want to trust us. When we know what we’re talking about, our clients can feel it and sense it, and it makes it easier to build trust. When you make up answers and fake what you know, people can sense it, and it turns them off. It does a disservice to the entire reverse community. So, study, study, study. Two, focus on respect. Nobody likes it when you’re talking with somebody, and they discount your experience. Don’t do that to our referral partners, or especially our clients. The community that we serve has so much experience, and we need to respect that. Three, be a good listener. Do you care about your client as a person, or do you see them as a dollar figure? Be a good listener From the Top continued from page 11 12 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MAY–JUNE 2023
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