Quality Over Hype To Build It Right with Rory Farrell & Mike Witczak | Episode 113

It's rare in 2026 to see a small-but-mighty independent mortgage brokerage survive, let alone thrive. But that's exactly what Rory Farrell & Mike Witczak are committed to growing at Marathon Mortgage in Erdenheim, PA. What's up, commitment and consistency! In this B&R ep, Sean & Tim talk to Rory & Mike about quality over quantity, purposefully building their respective businesses, and growing their networks. Dive right in, folks!

Big shout-out to our show's loyal and dedicated sponsor: Property Management Redefined. John Sacks and his property management squad love our show and continue to support our mission of helping people through podcasting!

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Until next week, keep learning and keep growing!

** Episode Shout-Outs **
→ Marathon Mortgage Happy Hour: http://www.youtube.com/@MichaelWitczak
→ Episode Sponsor, Property Management Redefined: https://gopmr.com/

📲 Contact Info 📲
→ Sean Mooney, Mooney Insurance Brokers: www.mooneybrokers.com/
→ Tim Garrity, The Tim Garrity Team: www.timgarrityteam.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Do you ever have dreams like I do at night of like working a nine to five? Nah. No.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Like in like rose-colored glasses.

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Like you mean like working in your sleep? No, I mean like imagine just so like what we just laid out, we just mapped out like a 24-7 cycle of contacting and events and doing Nah. No, no way. Okay, hold hold on. No way. Hell no. Let me make my point. But like I often dream of like a two-week vacation where I work a nine to five. Like you literally go into work, you leave at five, and like you don't think of work. You're like old school, like clog it out.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

How amazing would that be?

unknown 0:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

I mean, there's pros and cons, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:51

Welcome to the podcast dedicated to real estate, insurance, and building your business. Join us as we take you along our own business building journeys with additional wisdom from our network of local and national experts. Welcome to Bricks and Risk.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

This episode is brought to you by Property Management Redefined. PMR is not just managing properties, we're creating partnerships that build long-term success for property owners. John and his team can be reached at manage at gopmr.com or by phone 267-753-6005. Tim. Yes, John. Who's a good client for PMR?

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Property management redefined is looking for property owners who value three things accountability, reliability, and a results-driven approach. We want to maximize returns, but still provide client and tenant satisfaction.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

There's a lot of property managers out there. There are.

SPEAKER_04 1:56

What does PMR do really well? Biggest thing is they're seamless and they're worry-free. So with that approach in mind, it allows the property owner to put their trust in PMR and know that the results will be there. The other thing I think a property owner is really gonna value because they do it so well is that they have a local expert team, boots on the ground, managing your properties and your tenants' expectations every day so that you feel good about your investments.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

We have millions of listeners out there. Tens of millions.

SPEAKER_04 2:26

If they want more information, how do they find PMR? Right here, guys, reach out to John Sachs and his team at Property Management Redefine. Take good care of you. Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Bricks and Risk. I'm Tim Gardy.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I'm Tim's co-host, Sean Mooney.

SPEAKER_04 2:50

And today, Sean, we have two awesome guests, two local guests. Love when we bring boys on and girls from the greater Philadelphia area. We have Rory Farrell, loan officer with Marathon Mortgage, and Mike Witzack, loan officer with Marathon Mortgage as well. What's going on, boys? Woohoo! Thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Welcome, man. Welcome. And it's been a long time. We've been trying to put this together. Busy people, busy men. You guys are as well. I love you. You guys must have written like $100 million in loans. At least.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Let's get into it. Yeah, yeah. It's at least. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

That was the first quarter.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Quick uh quick background on Rory. So Rory's has 10 years in the mortgage business, 25 plus years in the sales and service industries, and his main goal is to make the mortgage process attainable, fun, and stress-free, stress-free for his clients. Mike, as we call him Mikey Mortgage.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Hold on one second before you even read this. I don't remember anything I put. So this is going to be a total shock to me.

SPEAKER_04 3:48

Mike. Mike was born in Port Richmond, Philadelphia. Yes. I knew I put that in there. But raised in Nepah, Northeast Pennsylvania, right outside of Jim Thorpe. After graduating from Penn State University, Mike found his way into the mortgage world and currently services all of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. At 26 years young and with five years of experience under his belt, he's ready to take over the game. Boom! Please tell me you did not write that.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Dude, I wrote that on purpose because I didn't know I didn't know he was going to read it out, but I knew they were gonna read it. And I was like, let me write this insane. So I copied half my Zillow description, like the Zillow reviews description, it's almost word for word. And the last part I was like, let me screw it them. And now it's payback because I didn't know they were gonna write it out. I'd live that. Yes. Let's talk about changing the game, Mike. Alright, what do you want to talk about, Sean Mooney? My feet picks you've been asking about, or all right.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

So let's do this. So you boys have a show, you have a podcast of your own. Yes. First of all, kind of like what brought you guys together to even contemplate a podcast?

SPEAKER_02 4:51

You. I mean, it was really you, it was Rory.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

Uh, cause I'll take credit for that.

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yeah, no, it 100% was because uh you had brought up like you saw everything I was doing with social media, you wanted to get more involved with social media. You brought up the idea of doing a podcast, asked me like if it was a attainable thing, could we do that? And I was like, Yeah, it's not hard at all, it's no problem. To me, it was really hard. Like I was like, how do we do it? Yeah, I mean, I had my camera, I have a really good camera. Uh, I had a tripod, and at that time, I think we had like two clip-on-road mics. I was like, that's all you need, really. And then we just talk. So awesome.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yeah, it it was all kind of born out of the fact that like COVID happened, and prior to COVID, we used to go into real estate offices and meet people face to face and like have that opportunity to build relationships. And COVID happened, and not only was no one in offices during COVID, but post-COVID, people just realized I'm not going to office anymore.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

So we would do that, and that was kind of like right around when you were starting. And Tom would be like, Tom, who's the owner of Marathon, would be like, Hey, go into offices, go into offices, go into offices, and he'd come back and be like, I didn't see one person.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:54

So we kind of came up with this idea of like, hey, let's start a podcast, we'll provide content, it'll be fun, we'll have like the drinking aspect to it to kind of make it more palatable. And then we'll be able to get hopefully realtors on and insurance guys and appraisers and title people and just kind of create connections that way.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

Yep. So what I find interesting just about like the point you made is that yeah, so like I got into the mortgage business, you know, this is like almost 25 years ago. And when I got in as a loan officer, I I did the same thing that Tom was talking about. Literally had like 20, maybe 25 offices that were like in between where my office was and where I lived. And it was like usually once a week, I'd probably tackle about 10 of them. I would just drive on my way home, be like boom, boom, boom, stop in, say what's up, drop off a rate sheet or some swag or something, you know, donuts. I never did the donuts, but it wasn't my thing. Um all right, so let's talk about kind of like, all right, so you start the podcast because that doesn't really exist as much anymore. Yeah. But it's not that like people don't go in in an office at all. They just don't really the real estate residential real estate agents I find just don't go in more in like the traditional sense, like, oh, it's Monday, it's nine o'clock, I better go to the office.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Do you guys ever get involved in just like events at people's real estate offices? Like someone's doing something, and you're like, oh, let's pop in for the event, shake some hands there. I mean, you're really good at that.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

You yeah, yeah. No, I mean I definitely, if I see there's an event online, well, first off, I always reach out and be like, hey, am I allowed to even come to this? Because I don't want to show up and be that guy.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Um have you have you ever done that?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh a few times, but yeah, um Hey man, gotta get business.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

It's the reverse Irish exit. Yeah, the Irish enter. He just shows up on the bounce. They just pop up.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Uninvited and unannounced. I've done that for years.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Um is it gonna sound like a razor joke? It's the Polish entrance.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

The Ryra? Yeah, he's Polish.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

That's why I said that. Yes, he's allowed to give him permission. Witzpeck's Polish. Alright. So um sitting next to a couple Irishmen here. Yeah, sorry. What the hell are we even talking about? Showing up at events unannounced.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Or doing events or collaborating with events. I mean, we do yes, because after a year of being told you gotta go to more offices and more offices, and I went to more offices and more offices, and there's nobody there, it's like, how do you get in front of people then? You reach out to them and ask, hey, are you going to be in the office? Uh, hey, we're having this happy hour. Do you want to swing by this happy hour? We're throwing a big event February 1st. Yep. Um we invited a ton of people to that. So yeah, number one, you create your own events and you invite people to it, and if they show up, great. If not, it's like at least you're tripping on them. Yep. Staying in front of them, newsletter, you know. Uh yeah, we'll get to it, I'm sure. Um and on top of that though, you just like it's a way to yes, give them something to come to and get in front of them instead of just showing up at the office at 9 a.m. and nobody being there.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

So is that what it's become? So it's like going to offices doesn't exist anymore. Is that like just gone completely? I mean, certainly from you know when me and Tim started, you know, that was the thing, right?

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Like you said, and now I I I think we pop in offices now, not so much to like catch people, but like if we're kind of in the area anyway, we'll do it and hopefully you see somebody just to say hi. Yeah, yeah. Um, not necessarily like, hey, my mission today is to hit these 10 offices. Yeah. At least that's me. Um, that's not the right way to do it or the wrong way to do it, it's just how I kind of run my business.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

Yeah. So all right, so Roy, so you've been in kind of like sales service, you know, you're around my age, you're a little bit older than our boy Mikey over here. Um, what kind of got you into the mortgage space? Like, why did you shift? Um, I wanted a more normal nine to five job. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Did not plan out that way.

SPEAKER_04 9:36

Remind me again, you were working at like a brewery.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

So yeah, the whole sales service thing, all like restaurants my whole life since the time I was like 14, 15 years old. Um, moved to California right after college. I ran a restaurant there for 10 years or eight years. And then the last two years of being in California, I moved to San Francisco and ran um Northern California um sales and marketing for brewery. So, like my background is sales, marketing, you know, customer service, and beer brewing type stuff. And that really developed when I was living in California. Um, when my wife and I decided to finally move home for family reasons, financial reasons, just like we're getting older, we want to buy a house, have kids, things like that. My dad worked at Marathon Mortgage at that point. Oh, no way. Had been in the mortgage industry for 30 years. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. So um he goes, Hey, Tom, who's our boss, um, is looking for kind of like someone to mentor, someone to bring up, build his team out, and kind of start fresh and teach them the right way to do the business and kind of help out, and then eventually become a loan officer. Yep. So that's I was like, oh, I'll I'll give it a shot. It was nerve-wracking only because like if I didn't like it, it was kind of like my dad was sticking his neck out. It's like a family affair kind of thing. So honestly, I'd never had like quote unquote like a desk job. Um, so it was a big leap for me. But I did want something a little bit more long-term career oriented, um, something with a little bit more of like predictable hours, I guess you could say. Yeah. Um, just because the the bar industry you're out till one in the morning, restaurant industry. Yeah. Um, and then same thing with sales for a brewery. It's like you're working all day, but then you're also doing events at night. So um come to find out that real estate and and mortgages and probably insurance as well is all 24 hours a day. So but it's a little bit more manageable.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

It's manageable. It's got like it might be like long hours, but it's either because you're busy or you're choosing to service clients that way. Like you're like, hey, it's like, you know, it's 7 30 at night. It's like I'm gonna pick up this call real quick. Probably won't take me longer than five, 15 minutes. Yeah. And let me just see what's needed. Is it emergency? Is it just venting? Is it you know, checking on something that you don't need to check on at 7 30 at night?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 11:34

But either way, it is the expectation that some people are gonna call you weekends after work because that's their time to think about their home purchase or their mortgage or their inspection or whatever it is they're doing. Yeah, yeah. And they want answers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

What year? Sorry. Go ahead. What year was that that you got into it? Um, 2016. So it's been it'll be 10 years in May. How has things changed? We talked about it briefly about some of those office visit changes, but like overall, when from when you started to now, like, what's the dramatic stuff that's that's changed that you've seen?

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Where do we start? Um, I think the industry as a whole has changed about how you again get in front of people. Um 2023, when or twene we started that podcast, I kind of really leaned into like, hey, I want to be more better at social media, which I never never even had a social media for work specifically prior to that. So that's a huge thing, just kind of getting out in front of people that way versus you know the traditional methods. Um, I think um kind of the loyalty that people have now, like back when we started, it's like you get a realtor and it was like boom, boom, boom, every one of their clients is going to you, or hey, you know, your best friend's gonna use you. And now it's like there's too much information out there, and it's almost like people have too many options, and next thing you know, it's like they're doing their own research, and eventually they come back to you and you set them straight. But it is uh, you know, like the loyalty isn't nearly what it was when like Tom and my dad used to be in the business. Yep. Um, not that I'm complaining about that, it just kind of is part and you got to adapt to it.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

It's the way it goes, it's just change.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

Always that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

It's the same for us, right? It's identical to us. I mean, we're having daily conversations with people that oh, it's I was online, found this, it's you know, $100 cheaper. And I'm like, all right, well, yeah, you want to send that to me and I'll look at it, and then it's just like, well, here's why. Here's why you know, so you get what you pay for in a lot of these scenarios, and probably like with mortgages, it's like you might get it for less, but you're dealing with someone in Kalamazoo that you know you're on a the depth chart of like 15 people, and you're not gonna be able to put the phone, you're not gonna get things corrected, you're not gonna be able to like ensure that this moves through the process avoiding these landmines and then get to the finish line.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

Yeah. And I was saying, I think it provides us an opportunity to really like make our worth more than just the numbers part of it. It's because we're very good at, and Mike's really good at it too, especially with the first time homebuyers that you work at education, taking the time to be like, hey, send me that estimate. Let's look at it apples to apples, and this is why it's different. And people are like, hey, well, I didn't realize the $5,000 in points that they were talking. Yeah, but you wouldn't. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

I was on the phone last night at 7 30 with a guy explaining to him how AM or PM? PM. Because I saw your host at 7 30.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I must have had like for everybody. Where is everybody?

SPEAKER_04 14:29

I must have had ESP because I just said 7 30, but keep going. Yeah. Well, 670.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Um, six that's old, bro. You're chopped on.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Not if you hold the six seven coin.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Stop listening to uh six-year-old son Brendan. Pull out the six seven coin. Let me see this. Oh, yeah. Pull it out, JMO. Come on. I got it right here. It's on a little bit of a slide. All right, so you're talking this guy at 7.30. Yeah, anyway, I'm talking to this guy at 730, Bank of America estimate. Um, they're missing nine months of escros. They're charging them $7,000 in points, and I have to explain this all to him and his father. And they're like, all right, we'll go back to I'm like, listen, the best way you can do this, go back to Bank of America, ask them to change the escros to 12 months like mine, and ask them to change the homeowner's insurance to $100 a month and look at it side by side, and you let me know. At 7 30 at night, I was like, you're not gonna get that person at Bank of America on the phone right now. My phone's blowing up right now. I saw it's the realder that they're working on. I'm like, I know it's about that deal. It took them, you know, hours to get that, and now I'm gonna have to go back and like argue with them or show them, hey, this like this is where they're charging you all this money. This is how we're able to get you a better rate, this is what we're and you just gotta like walk people through that. And it's not that I get frustrated with it, like they don't know. You know, this is my wheelhouse. If I talk to them about their job, or you know, we do loans for people at Lockheed Martin and Merck and all these places, like if you wanted to talk about what they do, Johnson, yeah, like engineering, pharmaceuticals, whatever, I can't talk about any of that stuff. But if you're trying to buy a home, like I'll educate you as much as I can so you understand like this is where they're charging a lot more money than we are, this is where they're beating us, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Here's where uh we found we kind of shine more recently, it's becoming more prevalent. What we're seeing is, and this is kind of my favorite, we have people come to us, find us online, referral, or whatever. Cold lead. Um cold or warm. Okay, cold or warm. But but the the the prospect that I love is the person who's had issues that comes to us because they've already been down the rabbit hole of knowing what else is out there. Like the example for you would be oh, we we tried to get this loan for this house, but it blew up at the 11th hour, so we missed this opportunity to buy the house. So now we need to work with someone that is qualified that will get us to the end, and those people understand the value of what we do, and working with them is just so much better. And they're a long-term client at that point. Long-term client.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

I'd say 95% of the time. Sometimes 5% of the time, you get people like that, and they still go and shop you after you figure it out. So it's like you gotta do that's like the headaches of the city.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

You know, I'll take that.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

Yeah. Well, I think like one thing we've talked about on the show like many, many times, like whether you're in real estate, you're in insurance, or you're in mortgages, it's we're all in the service industry, we're all in the relationship industry. And if you're good at what you do, you do this long enough, you help enough people. The people who will come back to you are the ones who want a trusted advisor. They're not gonna care about escrow comparison from one lender to another because it's gonna be the same. Yes, it's based on when your taxes are due and what they are required to hold. Yeah, so it's gonna be the same. Now, again, rates can change multiple times a day if the market changes. So that changes like the stock market. You know, someone can wave a fee here and there, just uh, let me just bring your business. I'm gonna wave this fee. So I personally find, like in real estate, and I'm sure you guys find this in mortgages, that when you're working with your client up front and you're saying, look, the difference between me and someone from Bank of America or whoever, someone in Kalamazoo, is that I actually want to help you succeed through this as an advisor, not as someone who's like, Oh, yeah, cool, let me put your application in. Like, I'll get back to you tomorrow. Like, commitment will be done in two weeks, like I'll see you closing, like you'll get a gift. Like, anyone can do that. Yeah. But not what anyone can't do is use their knowledge, like ask the right questions, you know, bring down the temperature, like say, hey, you know, I know you're fired. Why are you calling me at 7:30 at night? You know, you're you're heated about something. Yeah. So if you're heated, like you said, I'm picking up my phone, they're at home eating dinner because that's how their day is like. Yeah. That's what they're doing. And there's no right or wrong way, but you're making that clear. It's the intangibles. Like you always say.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

I say it all the time. It's like, it's not hard to be a good, it's not hard to be a loan officer. You can get the, you know, you can get the the credentialing licensing and do your CEs, all that stuff. But like where good loan officers or great loan officers separate themselves is like, do you care? Like, are you treating that person like a person, not a number? Um and like taking the time to educate and and make sure that they're feeling like they can make their own decision because now they understand everything versus, hey, this is what it is. Let me know if you're interested. It's like, well, let's figure out why it is the way it is, and are there other options and what's valuable to you?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

How do you turn that into marketing? How do you market that? Because that's the hardest thing that we're trying we're trying to get out there is is sharing the intangibles, which is our goal, like this is what separates you and I and you from from all the others. Is like, how do you promote that online so that someone who's looking to work with a mortgage person lands on you and then understands like what you bring to the table?

SPEAKER_02 20:03

That's the start of the podcast. Yeah. I mean, you have the podcast, um and the clips do really well. You gotta make sure you like I mean, obviously, capture that in the clips if you're talking about something like that. I think another thing, um, like I mean, we were just talking about before we got here, Bograd, right? Like, he films every day of his life. I'm not saying it's a right or wrong thing, but like he's crazy. He's a crazy guy. We love him, super nice dude. He's been on our podcast, I'm not gonna lie, very nice guy. Social media is like his thing.

SPEAKER_04 20:29

Yeah, oh, like he does a great. He's all in on that.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

All in. But like if you could capture a conversation from start to beginning, or start, yeah, start to beginning, start to end of somebody calling. Yeah, and I know it. See, see, I know it. I I got the genetics. Um but from start to finish of a conversation you had where you explained somebody called you and they had a question and you explained it and you showed, hey, this is what I'm going to do for you two. Like, yeah, I'm gonna walk you through this, I'm gonna explain it to you, I'm gonna break down everything so you understand it, and you're not confused when you get off this phone call. Even more confusing when you called. So if you could capture that somehow, that's what I would do.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

It's actually one idea that I asked Trudy's my office manager, and she uh doesn't want to go on video at all. But uh in my mind, so I had this question about how do you market that, and really everybody thinks insurance is the same, so like it doesn't matter like where you're at or who you're with or whatever. And so every day for us, it's a daily thing where where something goes like haywire. Yeah, and I'm like, why don't we just why don't I just record you talking about that scenario? Because if one of our customers dealt with it, someone else out there dealt with it, and then it becomes a thing where we're the problem solver, right? Like like there's an issue because more times than not, like that's Where the issues arise, where something goes wrong. And who do they go to to fix the problem? They're coming to us. And that's like our special sauce helping fix their problems.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Yeah. And you taking that on you as now this is my problem.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

And I'll run you as our problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

But I mean, the more that you can take it off of them and make them feel like, all right, I just called him. He handled it. Yeah. I'm not stressed about it anymore. And he's figuring out behind the scenes and he'll come to me with a solution.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

That's like everyone's so busy these days. If I can call you and I got kids jumping around in the background, I gotta get them to X, Y, and Z and dinner. And I call Sean and he's like, yeah, I'll handle it. I'll call you tomorrow with a solution. I'm like, boom. Whoa. Yeah. Like it's not that that's the intangible that we're talking about. That's not what your premium is. That's not, you know, anything else. It's hey, he took something off my plate that I didn't feel like dealing with. Well, or had any business dealing with.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

It's interesting you mentioned that agent and his approach to social media, because I feel like that personal approach to me is like all B2C. It's me as the real estate agent to see the consumer. I'm hoping that eyeballs pick up on this, and when they pick up on it, they relate to it. And then if they relate to it, they'll DM me, they'll call me, they'll email me. So that's an approach.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

I think this strategy is good because number one, there's part of the if you slice it up into different uh buckets. Like one bucket is like, look at what I got as an offer for this house. So you're then you're cueing, you're telling the consumer, like, look what I can do for you. But then there's another part where he is um like records those phone conversations, and then it kind of brings the consumer in to sh to show it like live on video, he is fixing those problems, or his team is so it's kind of a multifaceted, he it is a great job to show those different dimensions of him and his job.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

That's the main reason I brought it up. Not just like, I mean, sure, he does a bunch of other marketing and everything, but the main reason is you had brought up like, hey, what's a good way to display that we're problem solvers or we, you know, the intangibles? And it's like I think he does a good job at that from those phone calls specifically. Yeah. You know, everything else he does, I mean, hey, he's a very big guy. You're gonna be on a yacht in Miami. Do your thing, you know. But like the problems, that that that piece of his marketing, I I like for that piece. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:17

I mean, all right, so let me get back to that. So he's he's going B2C approach. Yep. Uh he's going real, real wide. Okay, he's he's got it's just like, I'm just gonna go as wide as I can get. I want you know, tens of things, maybe he's boosting posts. I don't know what he's doing, it doesn't matter. But he's going B2C and he's trying to build a no like and trust uh relationship with whoever sees it because they're gonna see it, be like, okay, like I I've seen that before. Do I like this guy? Do I not like this guy? And then after watching multiple videos, you're like, I think I trust him with my home purchase because I've seen three of these videos or 35, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_05 24:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:51

But then there's another approach, and it's kind of like the approach we were talking about about events. We were just talking about this, which is the B2B approach. Okay. So when you go B2C, you're going right to the home buyer, home seller, tenant, landlord, investor, whoever. When you go B2B, you're going a little bit more to the real estate agent, you're going to the title company, you're going to the financial planner, the attorney, the accountant, whoever. Insurance agent. Insurance. I'm sorry. Come on, man. I can't believe I forgot that, but I actually can. Um so the B2B approach is there's no right or wrong way. You don't go one or the other, you know, one this way and one that way. But the B2B approach is not necessarily what he's doing. Because he's not really trying to appeal to the accounting company down the street with that video. But if you have an event, let's say, and you invite 10 people, 100 people, it doesn't matter. When the people come to the event, one they're coming because they already know you and they like you. I'm hoping that they trust you already because they're like, hey, I want to come this event. Maybe they've already worked with you before. They're like maybe it's just an open bar.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Could be open bar, which that builds trust. You could drink if you go to the open bar, you could drink wine at the open bar.

SPEAKER_04 26:07

Yes, you can. And if I were at the open bar, that's what I would drink.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah, Tim always gets wine at the open bar. I was that was right.

SPEAKER_04 26:14

I was actually very tempted last night because, you know, side note, we went out and did like our annual meeting down at this uh bar in South Philly. Uh oh yeah, it was a seltzer bar uh because of your gluten-free uh non-existent allocation. No, two robbers is actually pretty good. Sick. Um wait, what do you got? Celiax?

SPEAKER_01 26:31

But I was no dude, I got like just um sorry, my bad. We don't need to go down that rabbit hole. I got it, my bad. I got like mad cow disease, like in the glu in like the gluten form. It's crazy. You'll never you'll never believe it.

SPEAKER_04 26:44

Sorry, off airwolf. Um but anyway, so what I was saying is that that B2B approach, there's a lot of value in that. It's not necessarily about the social media video, it's not about the calls, it's not about this. And not there's not wrong one right way or wrong way. It's just sometimes you have to do both ways, and sometimes you have to do it in multiple different channels, in person, social media.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Well, it can be a situation where social gets you in the door, and your ability to service those clients is like what keeps them coming back. Yep. On the B2B. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

And like I think we talk about it all the time too. It's not sometimes, it's all the time. You have to do everything. Yes, yeah. You have to have B2B, you have to have B2C, you have to have like I know he does it. I'm sure you, you, I mean, I know you guys do it. I've been to your events, you know. And if you're not doing every aspect of everything all at once, you're like, there's always stuff you're missing, or you might not be getting in front of the person you're supposed to be getting in front of, and it just you have to be doing it all. You know, there's like so some days, yeah, like you said, you do B2C, and other days you do B2B, and it has to be a mix of everything: old school ways, new school ways, mailers, door knocking, events, social media, all of it.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Hey everyone, this is Tim, your favorite bricks and risk co-host. But don't tell Sean. I hope you're enjoying this episode, and I'll get right back to it in a moment. Our audience grows through word of mouth, so if you would please take a moment of your time and give us a review on the platform you're on, that would be fantastic. Please also help spread the BR word by sharing your favorite episode with a friend. We greatly appreciate your time and trust. Now, back to the show.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Well, that's and and the reason that you have to do that too is like you just never know, and we talked about this before, is you never know where your message is going to land with the the client or consumer or referral partner, right? Like you might be on Instagram, they might be on LinkedIn all the time. You know what I mean? So if you're not hitting all of the different channels, you're you are having missed opportunities. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

I mean, the biggest person I look at in our relative business is former podcast guest, Ryan Serhan, right? Yeah. You look at him and what he's accomplished over the years. I mean, he has almost every avenue of everything. And I'm sure, I mean, he has many people that can help him with that, and he has a staff under him that does all of it, and now he's into sales coaching and AI integration, all that stuff. But he does everything and anything, and it just shows like what he's built, you know.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

So you just gotta do it all. Well, it goes back to your question is like what's changed. It's like the amount of avenues that you can do stuff now is like tenfold. So it's opportunities. You can't just send them a couple mailers out a year and door knock, and now it's like you do all that, but also the emails and the Instagrams and the LinkedIns and the events, and like the amount of ways you can get in front of people now is tremendous. Yeah. And you know, like you said, you just never know what's gonna work, so you gotta do it all.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Do you ever have dreams like I do at night? Oh boy. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

Of like working a nine to five nah no like in like rose-colored glasses, like you mean like working in your sleep?

SPEAKER_01 30:05

No, I mean like imagine just so like what we just laid out, we just mapped out like a 24-7 cycle of contacting and events and doing Nah, no, no way. Okay, hold on, hold on. No way.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

So, like Dog, it's Thursday at one o'clock and I'm in a podcast room with you right now. I can't do this at a nine to five. Like, this is all I know.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

True, but what I'm saying, if you let me make my point, just what he does. I don't have the dreams. Um, but like I often dream of like a two-week vacation where I work a nine to five. Like you literally go into work, you leave at five, and like you don't think of work. You're like old school, like clog it out.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

How amazing would that be?

SPEAKER_03 30:52

I mean, there's pros and cons, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Right. So Mike, can I get your take on that? Where's my camera? Where's my camera? Is it uh in front of me here? Where is it? No, I don't have these dreams. I don't know where my camera is, but I don't have these dreams. No, not at all. He's never been like that. I've never been like that. No.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

Like he, it's funny. Like, he's the youngest guy in the office. Um, he came in and he was like bullish from the get-go. He's like, How do we go to this business? I'm like, dude, you just started here. Relax. But he is, he's like that. He's like, Look at that guy.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

Look at that, he's praying to not be there. Look at that. Maybe he's a nine to five desktop.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

He's got his house at home praying for a nine to five. Go to an office.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

He's so thankful that he's about to clock out. Jeez, where's the time card? It's a moment of joy for him. That's great. But um, but he's I give him a lot of credit because he is very business-minded and has been. He's you know he started jobs when you were young and just like entrepreneurship detailing and drone uh video and stuff like before anyone was even doing that. And he came in, he's like, How do we grow this? What do we have to do? Here's a plan. What do you think about this?

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Like Did you guys need that at that time? Like, like he was kind of like the not toot his own horn, toot his horn too much, but the accelerator, like you know, you're kind of like doing your thing, doing your thing.

SPEAKER_04 32:02

Like fresh energy, perspective.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Like social is like this tsunami coming on the horizon, and Mikey What's that surfing that tsunami, baby? No shirt, poor Richmond born, just throwing it. Zinc on the nose, Macaulay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:20

Um, but yeah, I mean, for what it's worth, like, we've been around for 30 years. Yeah. Um, we've been through the highs and lows, and like Tom's been there for 25 years, my dad was there for 20 years, Kathy's been there for 20, Mike's been there for different Mike's been there for 20.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

My first loan that I ever did.

SPEAKER_03 32:34

Bob. So it's been around for a while, and things were just done a certain way for a very long time. And then COVID happened, and we kind of had to switch it up. And kind of like right at the same time, you came in. Yeah. And I mean, for us, it was like easy, quote unquote easy leading up to that. Like things were done the way that we always and we did a good job, and people came. And then he came in and it it, you know, off a cliff, and he's like, What do we do? Yeah, what how am I supposed to do this? So he had to figure it out. Yeah. And then in turn, he pushed me to figure it out. And then me and you, I think, are the most kind of like dedicated to like doing new things. And not even, I think it for sure.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Yeah, no, for sure. And you know, like push that for sure.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Sure, like, yeah, I had a big part to do with that, and I came in strong, and I wanted to like, you know, my goal this year is to close a hunter loans, right? Like that's my that's my thing. And hunter, yeah, baby. You see right there. Um, so I'm very like Rory said, bullish, but I in that aspect, that's what they needed. What I needed was Tom and Rory. Tom has 25 years of experience. Guardrails. Like some exactly. What'd you say? Relax. No, but but truthfully, like if it's a perfect mix because like I'm able to push them and you know, make them uncomfortable in that way, and they're able to kind of level you out a little bit and teach me everything though. Like, I wouldn't do half the business I'd do if it wasn't for them. You know, I I could I'm in the office every day. I can go into Tom's office. You know, this deal's falling apart. What do I do? I like if I was somewhere else, I would I don't have that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

You're not asking your boss at Bank of America and wherever, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:15

You know, like it's just and the comfortable the comfortability of that. Sorry, it took me a while. Um Tom's my best friend's uncle. That's how I met him. So, and then you know, Rory's been like an older brother to me. Everybody in the office is super family-like. So uncle. Yeah, he's like, well, yeah, actually, great party. Brother, I like better. Brothers, I'd be like an accident. Uncle, that's more accurate. Um accident.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

It all it all like loops together and so was it so it makes me think that there were identical scenarios in that Rory came into mortgage from like restaurants, so you kind of had to like adapt your being for this type of work, and you probably came in and you you're probably like like I had you guys don't even have social media. Like you like you had this background where you're like had one idea of how the business would go, and then you had to kind of adapt to like what was going on in the office.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah, my my biggest hurdle, I think, wasn't like yes, the social media I had to adapt to what was going on in the office.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

So that text messaging and and and all the other technological things that is like your way of life. And it's just normal to me, yeah. Wasn't happening.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

Roy still comes up to me. He's like, Why do you have them text you documents? I was like, It's easy, they just send me the documents. What do you mean? He's like, I can't look at that on my phone. I just like email it to my computer if I have to.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

But um He's bringing, he's like, Can you take a look at this income with me? And he's like, I'm like, dude, I can't see someone's pay stub on your phone.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

Nuts. But it's like you guys said, it's what I it's what I know. The hard part for me was going to like talking to people, you know, like going to taking people out and talking to them and having a conversation about mortgages. And I'm like, how do you well I've had to learn how to do that?

SPEAKER_04 36:00

Yeah, that wasn't natural to you. No, no, I mean talking to people naturally, but going out with any business aspect almost like all right. So, Mike, yes, was this your first job out of college becoming a loan officer, or did you do anything else when you finished Penn State?

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Um, this is my first job out of college, yeah. But I mean I worked, I've been working since I was besides bodybuilding. Yeah, I mean, there's bodybuilding. Um foot videos, foot videos, yes. I still do that though. So uh but what's the handle? Side hustle. Side hustle. It's one heck of a side hustle. I mean, I washed dishes, I worked at Lowe's for four years, I did roofing in the summers.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

Yeah, so you've been grinding since you were young.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was your major at Penn State? Uh accounting.

SPEAKER_04 36:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Business with an emphasis in accounting.

SPEAKER_04 36:42

So then like so you've done all that grinding growing up. You this is your best friend's uncle is at Marathon. What was it that during that interview that they were like saying to you, or you know, you were envisioning that you were like, oh yeah, let's let's go this direction.

SPEAKER_02 37:01

Uh well, so that's like not how it happened at all. I'll tell you just real quick. Like, here's how you need it. No, it was like uh piece of paper. Yeah. When did I meet? I met Tom. So my buddy Aaron, who I live with today, been friends since 12 years old, 13 years old, uh, met in high school, was at his Christmas party one year at his house in Brigantine. Tom's there. Tom and I are talking. Tom owns Marathon. That's who we were talking about before. He's like into skiing, he's into surfing. I'm into skiing. I know about surfing, like, they're really big into surfing. Um, so we're just chatting it up. I have no idea what he does. I get a text from my buddy's mom. Hey, Tom had reached out. Uh, he thinks you would enjoy doing what he does. Are you interested in checking it out? It was like, uh, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was probably gonna join the military if I didn't have a job out of out of college. And I was like, Yeah, I need an internship to graduate. Will he give me an internship? This was this was the end of 2019.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Okay. Can he help me graduate college?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

If he helps me graduate, I'm in. I'm in. A hundred percent what happened. So I I text, he's like, Yes, I'll give you an internship internship, and I'll pay. I think he was paying me $20 an hour to come down intern three days a week. I was like, holy shit, $20 an hour? I'm in.

SPEAKER_04 38:23

Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

So we're getting everything set up, COVID hits. I'm like, great. So then I follow up, follow up, follow up. Long story short, end up getting in there uh January of 21, and I never left.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Yeah, so he started before he even graduated. Yeah. Yeah, he just starts six months before I graduated. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

And then you must have really you must have really liked mortgages if you're uh I was working three days a week at Marathon, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

I'd drive down from the Poconos. Wow. Uh Monday through Monday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I worked at Amazon as a delivery driver. And then when I had time off, I had contracts with dealerships to detail their vehicles. So that's like what I was doing. So I almost flunked out my senior year because I stopped like just taking classes.

SPEAKER_04 39:08

You're like working more than you're supposed to be finished in school at that point.

SPEAKER_02 39:11

Yeah. So then I got a call from my like admissions, and they're like, hey, uh, you're missing three credits and you're failing a class. And I was like, what? And I fixed it, got it straight. And you're like, what? I go to Penn State? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:20

Like, yes, you do.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Forgot all about it. So that's how I got started.

SPEAKER_04 39:25

All right. Interesting. Yeah. All right.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Go ahead. Uh I wanted to insert the road to 100. Yeah. Okay. What about it? Um Yeah, why a hundred? Why a hundred? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:39

Where that number comes from. It was 80.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

It was 80, but now it's 100. Why 80?

SPEAKER_04 39:43

Why a hundred? Like what what made you start thinking that way?

SPEAKER_01 39:45

I loved it. So set the frame for the people, talk, give the backstory, give kind of what it is, and you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Now I know where my camera is, so I can look right over there. Uh okay. I put out on my Instagram, I think the first week of January, here's my goal for the year. I want to close 100 loans. Here's why it's 100 loans. So I was in the office one morning, Tom's always in there, and Courtney's always in there around like nine o'clock. I I don't know what was up with me, but I was like, yo, Tom, how many loans? Squirrely. Yeah, feeling a little froggy, you know. So I jumped. And I told Tom, I asked him, how many loans do I have to do for you to build a patio on the side of Marathon Mortgage? So like you can have a patio outside, there's a ton of land right there, it's right down the creek. It's a cool place. Grills a little tilt side. He's like, dude, put it down. At first, he was like, What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_04 40:33

Is this like in the back and like the back section, or is this on the actual side of the building?

SPEAKER_02 40:36

On the side of the building, okay. Where like the grass is.

SPEAKER_04 40:38

Okay, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

So he's like, What are you talking about? I mapped it all out for him. He's like, Oh, that'd actually be pretty cool. He like liked the idea. I said, How many loans do I have to do? He goes in his office, he's like quiet for a couple minutes. He goes, 80 loans. I said, 80 loans, you'll do it. He goes, 100. And he walked out of his office and he shook my hand in front of Courtney and he said, Courtney's our witness. So that was in October of last year. So I've been since October, I've been telling every realtor I'm in front of, every per, yeah, next year I gotta do 100 loans. So I'm just kind of speaking it into existence at this point. That's awesome, man. You're doing more than that.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

This he works harder than anyone in our office on building new business and like being creative with stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

So here, so we talked before uh about the newsletter.

SPEAKER_05 41:24

Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

How much time do we have? Uh we spoke a couple hours on the newsletter. I've got a new idea for you. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

Say the foot letter, bro. Say something crazy.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

Are you sitting down? I think you create a website, and it is the road to a hundred. Okay. Like, and this becomes a video vlog that you do that documents like a little snippet of your day, and and people can follow along, and you have this big board, and you're like, I'm at 47 today, and people follow along the road with you to get to 100.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

All right. Well, you've kind of been doing that though. Like, before you got sick, you were doing a daily vlog about like Yeah, yeah. I just got like just flex on what time you got to the office. That's really all you were doing.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

Um Do you go to the gym anymore or just a marathon? I'm a bum. I don't go to the gym. Roy will explain why I'm saying that, but I don't do anything to exercise whatsoever. Perfect. I'm out of shape.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

You saw the text messages I said. He's got Amazon drops off a giant box yesterday. It's a treadmill that he can set up. I think I saw that. Meanwhile, he's eating a Wawa Hoagie. I'm like, dude, you're not doing yourself any favor. He's like, yo, there's still serving babies at Wawa.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

If he ate the Wawa Hoagie, it wasn't on the treadmill, he would be even fatter. Just eat some chicken. No, back to my point. Yeah, yeah. A YouTube channel, a landing page, or whatever web page, internet, uh a series. Right. And you document it and people can follow. Done. Clip it. Clip and ship it.

SPEAKER_03 43:13

Let's go. I do. I mean, it is funny you say that because I thought a similar thing where I'm like, hey, if you're at like 98, like I'm giving you a couple loans. You know, like people want to help someone reach a goal.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Part part of it too. I'm gonna go buy a house just to give them a loan.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Um, if I recall correctly, was the video that you were making that talked about, you're like, I don't do a whole lot of video like this. Was that one of the parts of the video?

SPEAKER_02 43:34

Probably, yeah. Just like a face, like a camera. I don't do a lot of this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:39

Which again, I also think is a good thing to get used to because you're like, okay, I mean, a hundred is a hundred, it's a number. Okay, but what is it? What are you going to do to get there? And what kind of things are you going to learn along the way that are gonna help you get there? And to Mooney's point, any kind of vlog it doesn't have to be a website, it'd be any kind of vlog or video. Or series or whatever you want to call it, like you're capturing the journey through a way that you're already like, I'm kind of uncomfortable with this. I don't really do this. Yep. And that I feel like makes it better and better along the way. Because if you do that straight for a year, just like we talk about with podcasting all the time, you guys have done it. First podcast you ever did, we're kind of like, uh like what are we doing? Yeah, even ours. Like when we started, we were like, we felt good about it. We knew each other since we were young pretty good. Yeah. I mean, he was good. I freaking stunk. And like we were like in the beginning, like, yeah, what do we say? Like, what do we do? Like, you know, so it is.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

It's the reps. But also, too, is you're showing other mortgage people like you can set a goal and get to get to a goal, but when your clients in your real estate contacts, same deal. You're showing them that the consistency to show up on like how to get that goal. Yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Absolutely. And even if you don't reach that goal, you're like, say, shit, if I did 80, we're like, but then I just build all these good habits that are gonna turn into a hundred in the next year.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Yeah, be like, Tom, you said 80 initially. Is that coffee? Courtney, you saw it, right? Courtney, 80, you said that?

SPEAKER_03 45:06

She's on our side.

SPEAKER_04 45:07

Let me uh let me let me go over your quotes here. So, Rory, your quote was you know what it is. Comparison is the thief of joy by Teddy Roosevelt. Why that quote?

SPEAKER_03 45:17

I think it just it covers everything, covers life, it covers business, it covers personal relationships, um, especially now with social media, it's like so easy to comparison culture. Yeah. To any, yeah, everyone. And you're like, if you're in the real estate industry and you're looking at Joe Bograd, you're like, oh shit, I'm not doing what I should be doing, or I'm not doing the amount of business. I'm not doing what he's doing or she's doing or whatever. And it doesn't matter. Are you happy? Are you spending time with your family? Are you ha literally happy in your office? Like we we say it all the time. Like, I couldn't work for Bank of America doing the same thing. I couldn't work for almost anyone else doing the same thing, but our our office culture is so great, but I love it there. So it's like, don't worry about other people. It's like build your business the way that you feel comfortable doing it, that's successful for you. You know, maybe take little tidbits here and there from people on social media or wherever, you know, your your sphere, but do it the way that you want to do it and that you're comfortable and happy with it. And I think that goes again, not just business, that's across the board. Yeah, that's awesome. It's great. It's too easy to get down in the dumps in our business anyway, let alone comparing yourself.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

It's everywhere too. It's inescapable, like this mind trap that you see other people doing these things, and it's like the instant assumption that oh, I'm a failure because I'm not doing XYZ. I should be doing that. Yeah. Yeah. And so you're right, it's like if you just concentrate, and we've said it before, it's just concentrate on you, competing against yourself, getting better every day, yeah, it'd be amazing.

SPEAKER_03 46:43

I mean, I tried my hardest today to look cool in front of you, Sean, and I just couldn't do it compared to what you're like. You know?

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Is this outfit different now than it was weird? I feel like it is. I don't know if it is. Nothing's changed. All right, so Mikey Mortgage, yours was tough times don't last, but tough people do. Why that one?

SPEAKER_02 47:03

So my father always said Nice. That's that's why I okay. I'm actually kind of happy with myself like that. Yeah, that's something my dad would say all the time growing up. I mean, like, there were a few things he said, tough times don't last, tough guys do. And uh, you know, like it's not hard, you you make it hard. You know, those are the two things. Simple. Which is what I grew up on. Yeah, that's I mean that's really what it is. I Rory could vouch for this, but the first three and a half years of being in this business was horrible. Like, yeah, sucked. It was like a hard grind.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Probably no worse time to entry your way into mortgages than your time when you started.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yeah, yeah, literally. So I got a I learned a lot in comparison to Thief of Joy. Yep. Right. Yeah, at first I thought that was the corniest thing in the world. And now daily proud. Yeah. And but I've been so humbled, you know, throughout three and a half years that the past year and a half, you know, I've I've learned a lot. So tough times don't last. I've had a great past year and a half, and everything that was hard during those three and a half years, I've learned so much from. I learned enough to close 100 loans this year, you know. So that's what I'm going after.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Well, listen, if you're still doing mortgages 10, 15, 20 years from now, there's gonna be another period in time where it's gonna be slow as all get out, peaks and valleys, and you're like, oh, I've been through this. I've weathered that storm, which was way worse than this.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

So I told him I was like, you're uh like we had I I had a couple good years leading up to it. So when I when it hit, I was like, all right, we can get through this. Like he only saw that. So it's like it forced him to be better. Like I was able to kind of sit back and be like, we're fine. I got a little money in the bank, you know, like whatever, like it'll pass. And it took longer than everyone expected. Um, and it's still kind of taken longer than everyone expected.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

It didn't help though when you'd go to them and they're like, Yeah, you're gonna have a month, don't worry, you're just gonna like pop all. Yeah, and I was like, What months are those? Like, when does this happen? Is it the 13th month? Like, where is he that month?

SPEAKER_03 48:55

Yeah, I talked him off the ledge so many. Like, I thought he was gonna quit monthly. Last year, this time was probably the worst. That you gave yourself, I think, until April.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

You're like, I'm I was like, dude, if it doesn't change by April, I'm out of here. Like, I can't do this anymore.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

But when did you have your best month ever?

SPEAKER_02 49:11

June. So I waited past April, it was June. Well, it probably started picking up in April to have the closing season. Yeah, yeah, I was getting phone calls, so that was good.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

And and like that right there is just your ability to weather the storm, and then you found that month pop off.

SPEAKER_03 49:27

Yeah. And it's a huge testament too to Tom and and marathon mortgage in general, because like we like most people in his position, like if you're not producing, you're probably gonna get axed. Like Tom doesn't run his business that way. He doesn't like it's you dire situation if he's firing people and letting people go. Oh, yeah. You know, like we didn't let anyone go over the past couple years when a lot of companies would have. And he's like, We're a team, we're a family, we take care of each other and you know, hooked you up with you know, making sure that you put food on your table on the on the low months. 100%. Pay your team membership. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 49:58

So I'm loyal to him as I get phone calls all the time now. Hey, come work for it. Never.

SPEAKER_03 50:01

He lives in Planet Fitness now. He showers there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:04

Planet Fit in the back. Planet Fit Lifetime Fitness. Planet Fitness is a ten dollar way. Don't don't put me in Planet Fitness. I'm joking, I'm joking. I love Planet Fitness. I was a member there. 10 bucks a month, 150 a month.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Yeah, come on now. But also, too, is like his idea of the way he runs it is hire good people, create good culture in the office, everybody takes care of everybody. That that's you're not gonna find that at most other places.

SPEAKER_03 50:30

I just listened to your episode on on building a team, right? It was recent, like a couple weeks ago. I appreciate that. And I listened to that one specifically because number one, I was coming on here and just wanted to get like a vibe. Um, I've listened to a couple further back, but I was like, let's let's get a recent one. Uh-huh. Um, but also it's like so important. Like, that's our value is our team, like putting people in place who are gonna represent you the way that you want to be represented. And my sister-in-law works there, my father used to work there. You you know, you came on because Tom knew your best friend's uncle or best friend's father, right? How does that work? He is my best friend's uncle. Yeah. Um Mike in the office is Tom's best friend from high school. Like his mom works there as admin, and like she is. It's like a family, it's like a family. Yeah, so it's like awesome. Yeah, we we take care of our own, and you know, that's that's it. Kind of how we how we run it.

SPEAKER_04 51:16

Great stuff. All right, awesome discussion. So before we shut this one down, why don't you tell our bricks and risk listeners and watchers where they can learn more about you and everything you got going on? Mikey, Mikey Mortgage, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:28

At mortgage mic underscore two one five on Instagram. Nice uh and Mike Witzang on YouTube. You can check our podcast out, our clips out, everything.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Where are people gonna go to watch you close a hundred?

SPEAKER_02 51:39

At mortgage mic underscore two one five on Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

I am going to create the webpage and I will Terry link in the address here and we'll get all our watchers, listeners to the page.

SPEAKER_03 51:50

Same as how about you, Roar? Uh my Instagram is Rory.marathon.mortgage. Okay. That's unhelpful. Is that it? Just find him based on it. Find me based on his connection. Um yeah, we have our podcast that you guys have both been on. Yeah, what's the name of the podcast so everyone knows? Uh the Marathon Mortgage Happy Hour. Um, you guys have both been on it. Go back and find their their episodes and uh follower. We gotta get back to drinking on that podcast, man. Nice. Really dropping the podcast. Just drinking in general, maybe. Just me and Mike drinking on the camera inside of the podcast anymore.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Now that you have a couch, let's put the couch to use today.

SPEAKER_04 52:24

Jeez. All right, well, find us. That's all we have for this one, folks. Thank you for tuning in again to another episode of Bricks and Risk. See you next week. Thanks, guys, for taking. Thank you for coming. Thank you for joining us on another episode of Bricks and Risk. Our goal is that you walk away with one or two valuable nuggets, and we greatly appreciate you sharing your time with us today. You can find all BR episodes on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and anywhere else you get your podcast content. Until next time, keep learning and keep growing.