Why Consistency Trumps Talent Every Time • Learning With A Lender • Joel Schaub

Keeping It Real Podcast • Secrets Of Top 1% REALTORS ® • Interviews With Real Estate Brokers & Agents

Welcome to the September episode of Learn With A Lender with Joel Schaub of Guaranteed Rate!

In this episode Joel emphasizes once more the importance of consistency in building your business. Joel and DJ focus the discussion on building a brand and also the importance of giving back to your clients and the society. Last, as per usual Joel talks about the rates and what the lending market looks like at the moment.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Joel can be reached at [e-mail] and 773.654.2049.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by Joel Schaub at guaranteed rate. As a realtor it’s important to partner with only the most trusted name in mortgage lending. Joel has 1000s of satisfied clients and gives $1,500 of his commission. Back to your buyers on every closing. He is known for his ability to close even complex deals start to finish in only 14 days to learn what 1000s of others already know. Make a note to call Joel at 773-654-2049 or email [e-mail] Guaranteed Rate is an equal housing lender licensed in all 50 States Consumer Access Number 2611 And now on with the show.

Welcome, everyone to another episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris, I am your guide and host through the show. And today once again is our monthly series called Learn with a lender with Joel shop from guaranteed rate. Now Joel is the vice president of lending at guaranteed rate, and he’s been doing loans at a high level since 2003. has got to that level because of what he does specifically for agents, which is he gives back part of his commission to the buyer on every transaction. Last year alone Joe gave Joel gave back over $291,000 in closing costs to buyers who worked with him which put Joe’s volume in the top 1/10 of 1% of all lenders nationwide. In fact, out of 400,000 loan officers in the country Joel is currently ranked number one 137. Last year, he closed over close to 535 transactions, his highest amount ever, which was totaling 195 million in loans. Already this year, Joel has closed 468 transactions for 189 million. So he’s just about to surpass his last year’s goals. Now if you are looking for a loan officer, we cannot more highly recommend Joel he’s the very best we’ve ever worked with. Joel can be reached via email at [e-mail]. Again, [e-mail]. Or you can shoot him a text message or call him at 773-654-2049 Guaranteed Rate is available in all 50 states. So let’s say hello to the biggest Cubs fan. I know Joel shot, Joel Hey, DJ,

Joel Schaub 2:36
thanks so much for having me on. It’s good to be here. And you’re right. I mean those numbers when I hear them, it always it even shocks me. But it’s not about that. It’s always the times that we get to come on here and give back and actually come up with real strategic ways for agents to grow their business.

D.J. Paris 2:55
Yeah, it’s so funny, I was thinking about this, we hit a milestone with the podcast recently, I think by the time this airs, we would have crossed over 300 episodes. And if somebody would have asked me and worried about a million downloads, and if somebody would have asked me or if I would have thought about at the beginning when I started the podcast will what would it take to create 300 episodes and to get that kind of listenership I would have my head would have exploded. And I would have said it’s not possible. And and it’s not that I achieved anything that was impossible. It’s definitely possible because here we are. And you are also an example of that. But it’s just about being consistent and doing the daily activities. And you are maybe the best example of all of our guests, because every single day you are your head is down, you are working. And here you are now what 18 years later, basically, from when you started, and you’re just crushing it. And so, you know, we bring Joel out every single month to talk about, yes, of course rates and what’s going on in the lending world. But also, the exact strategies Joel used to become one of the top loan officers in the country is the same strategies you can use to be a top realtor or a top salesperson in other fields. So Joel, I’m sorry, I sort of took over there at the beginning but but I love having you on because you are you are the the prime example of the kind of person that we bring on our show, whether you’re a lender or a real estate agent, you’re you’re doing the work.

Joel Schaub 4:26
Now listeners, I want DJs words to really stick with you. He said something that he said consistency, right? How do you get to that level? Everybody thinks they can go StartUp podcast these days. And maybe they’re true. But it’s something to be said about somebody that can do it consistently. And so agents come to me a lot. And they say, I’d be happy just to get to 50 transactions a year and you’re doing 50 transactions every single month. What is it? What’s the secret? You There isn’t one it’s about staying consistent and having this game plan going forward that you know You are and we talk about branding. And we talk about planning, right? And that’s what we’re going to talk about here today. If you’re an agent, now you can already, if you’re not already looking ahead to 2022, this is the time we’re just finishing up q3. So our team and our strategies aren’t for what are we going to do in the next couple of days? Weeks? It’s what are we doing next year, right. And that’s how we laid the foundation for where we’re at this year, making sure that we actually have a consistent brand. And then we had planning for different events.

D.J. Paris 5:34
Let’s talk about branding a little bit. So I know I went through recently, I, I volunteer with an organization outside of real estate. And we went through a branding exercise actually took us six months to go through it. And we started to talk about Well, ultimately, after all the six months of discussion, we came up with a series of about five buzzwords, and these buzzwords were actual feelings that we wanted people to think or feel rather, when they thought about us. So this organization I was involved in, we now were able to narrow it down to sort of five key feelings, or experiences that we wanted somebody to have. And it was so valuable to me, because what it enabled us to do was now we had our Northstar, which was these five key things, and all of our branding and marketing now is based around, are we getting people to experience these five things. And I’m curious to sort of get your take on, on how you’ve done that, because you have done that exceptionally well all over Chicago,

Joel Schaub 6:36
we create a brand. And usually the biggest mistake I see people make is they come up with a brand or something that isn’t authentic to them. Yeah. And it’s not something that they’re passionate about. Okay, so DJ, if, if you’re talking every single day, people really respond to stories and things that are real, right. And if you can find something that you’re actually truly passionate about, that’s authentic, everything that you do can go around that. So for me, it was just something simple. And it was our love for the Chicago Cubs. Okay. And just pretty simple when they won the World Series, right. For years, that might have been a very bad planning, right, like, the lovable losers, right? As we most

D.J. Paris 7:17
of the Cubs history. That was not something you could wrap around. But but but but here we are thinking times have changed

Joel Schaub 7:24
in your right. But I would argue that it doesn’t matter whether they’re winning or losing. It’s certainly right, you could speak to authentically so that you had a vision, right. And so for us, it’s all about picking an area of the city that we could dominate and really see penetration in terms of branding and marketing so that when anybody thought about the columns, they would see our name, right. Whenever they were going through the neighborhoods, they would see our billboards. Whenever there were listings, there were banners below it that said, just call Joel. Right. So it was you can’t be something to everybody, the city’s big. But we took a neighborhood. And we started to build that. And so something that was really easy for me, I didn’t pick cat lovers or you know, something that wasn’t you know, nothing wrong with cats. I was thinking something opposite of dogs, because we love our dogs. But it’s about a plan and somebody that you can speak to authentically so I challenge you as an agent. It’s all about a brand, right? What can you do that’s authentic to you that you can go out and market and we’re talking about in person. And in social media, which is really big right now. DJ.

D.J. Paris 8:31
It is. And it’s so what I’ve always so impressed Joe with you going back to the authentic sort of part of branding is it’s everything’s got to start from authenticity, because not only will it make things smoother for you, as the agent to be able to do certain activities and campaigns around around authenticity, but it will also the public will see through anything that is inauthentic. And they do see through it oftentimes. And so any you’re a great example because for authenticity, because when I know during during the pandemic, and of course, we’re still in the pandemic. But when we were right in the middle of the most difficult part of it, you and you’ve been doing this prior to the pandemic, you were really focused on giving. And so you were able to to demonstrate giving, during a time when when a lot of other people were hunkering down, you reached out and wanted to help other organizations. And that, of course, is who you are. And it just of course, if that is who you are authentically, you’re able to sort of promote that and show that the public, here’s what I do, here’s who I am. And obviously they responded well to that.

Joel Schaub 9:44
So if you’re a real estate agent, right, and you are looking forward, like what can I do? There’s so much competition, right? Same with lending, right? Every loan officer says we have the lowest rates, and you don’t really talk and hear me say much about rates at all. We have a good program, we understand our guidelines, I’m a dork for all of the different changes. So when it comes down to something, we get things done, we understand guidelines and how to do transactions. But at the end of the day, most people don’t remember the rate that they got, they remember the service and whether it got done correctly. And then the referrals come based on a brand and something that people can rely on. So the big thing here is if you’re an agent, what is it? That’s passionate? Is it a children’s group where your kids go to school? Is it a dog Association? Is it one of these things that you can really tie yourself to and be in that community and be a giver? Okay, so everyone thinks you have to wait to you get to give. And once you actually start giving, why does it come back to you?

D.J. Paris 10:50
Yeah, I have found that to be so incredibly true. I, I wish I would have if I could have talked to my younger self, when I was in my early 20s, where I was more self focused, I’m still pretty self focused, but not as self focused as I was, when I was starting out in the business world. And I really didn’t give as much of myself to, you know, passion projects of mine are ways I could give back. And I suffered for that, in the sense of, I didn’t get to experience a lot of that joy. And also, I didn’t, people didn’t get to see me giving back also. So I would encourage everyone to to think about, you know, a particular organization or community event that that is really important to you, whether it’s, you know, the park down the street needs to be cleaned up, or as Joel said, you know, whatever your passions are dogs, you know, government, whatever it may be, you can, you can make a difference. And by doing that, boy, people are so attracted. It’s funny I whenever I go to, and I do not consider myself a film, a philanthropist, a philanthropy type style pricing, although I certainly am involved in several of those. But whenever people ask me about that, they’re always very impressed. And in the sense, because I think all of us deep down want to give more, but we you know, we’re busy, we have other things going on. So you really have to carve out time to do it. And when when people hear that you are giving back boy, their their impression of you is certainly going to skew towards the even more positive than it might have been before.

Joel Schaub 12:27
So we talked about this a lot, right? We talked about having a database of your clients, and what can you do to give to them and so so many people, they go, this is the year that I’m going to send out cards, right? I’m gonna do all my Christmas cards this year. Okay. And if, if that’s the plan, I say that’s better than not doing something. Sure. Okay. But what if we didn’t fall into the mix, where you’re just one of 50 other cards that somebody’s got,

D.J. Paris 12:52
you get this big pile of holiday cards, you know, around the second or third week of December. And and as nice as it is, and as appreciative of it is, things can get lost in the shuffle for sure.

Joel Schaub 13:03
So for years pre pandemic, what we would do is we would do something right around Thanksgiving, and we would do pumpkins, right, we would do a pumpkin patch, and we would have people out. Or we would send Thanksgiving gifts, right? And we would say we’re so thankful for clients like you Happy Thanksgiving. But we avoided the major holidays, it really helped us build our brand because nobody gets a Thanksgiving garden sends out a gift for Halloween. Nobody does. But if you’re an agent, you have a database of people and find something that’s even small that you can send out to people or do a pop by with pies. Do it on the days that other people aren’t expecting anything and it goes a long way. So each year we do a Thanksgiving gift and we do a Valentine’s Day gift. And you gotta watch out because I’ve gotten some mad men that said Joel’s gift to my wife was better than the gift that I gave her.

D.J. Paris 14:01
Yeah, I that is so true. It is it’s always it’s always the little things too that clients appreciate. Of course the big things are important too. But we all know in relationships with friends family or our partners. You know the little things are important and so Joel saying is really important to think about. Yes, of course you can you can send a holiday card if you’d like but think about something else that’s a little bit outside of of the what everyone else is doing. And and just you know think about how you can make someone smile like if I received a Halloween gift which I probably won’t this year from anyone you will it’s coming from you from you I might it will be the only Halloween gift I get. Well I remember that you bet I will. Well I remember the 17th holiday card I get and I’m not again, not to disparage anyone from selling the sending holiday cards. It is a lovely gesture. But will I remember that one as much as I remember the Halloween gift that was The only one I got probably not right. So make yourself known and, and it’s really fun to because then whatever you’re passionate about, if you’re a Halloween person, and you love Halloween, then make that your thing. And think of how fun that is to like, drop those gifts in the mail or drop them, as Joel said, as a pop by, say, Hey, here’s a little Halloween fun decoration for your home. You know, that’s fun to do. And it’s just good feelings all around, right? It’s a win all the way around. And it wouldn’t

Joel Schaub 15:33
be a keeping it real if we didn’t talk about mortgages and rates and some of the planning here so that we understand exactly what’s going on in the market, because that’s one of the questions I get asked the most. And as agents ago, what’s going on with rates? Right? Where do you think they are? And they say, get your crystal ball? Or they usually say I don’t think you have a crystal ball? And I say, but I do. Mortgage rates right now, when we talk about rates, we’re always talking 30 year fixed for unconventional borrower with good credit, and 20% down, right, that’s the go to whenever the websites are quoting these out. And they’re still below 3%. We know this, you can get rates at 2.6 2.72829. All of those are available, depending on the credit scores and the income of the borrowers which you look back last year, they were a little bit above that the year before quite a bit above that. Okay. Right now, we are probably just above the all time lows that we’ve ever seen when we were in the throes of the pandemic. So is it the lowest it’s ever been? No, there were some weeks in the middle of 2020, where it was marginally lower. But those rates today are still available with clients that are paying points and things like that. So the strategy here is understanding where we could be in the future, so that you can speak intelligently to buyers? And I’ll tell you here, they’re not going up. Okay, the Federal Reserve is keeping rates low until 2023. Okay.

D.J. Paris 17:12
It’s really, it’s really impressive. I mean, we are in such a really unprecedented time with respect to lending rates. And I want to remind all of our listeners and our viewers that the, you know, the average, home owner, or or even person renting, so we’ll say anyone who’s not in the industry, who either owns a home or who is renting a home probably isn’t paying attention to the rates we do because we’re in the industry, we know what’s going on. But do we think that those people are getting called by lenders, if they’re a homeowner is their lender calling them to say, hey, great time to maybe consider refinancing or maybe upgrading to another home are renters being called prospected, you know, by lenders saying, hey, may be a great time to buy, they’re probably not. So this is a great opportunity, as I see it, to pick up the phone and call everybody you know, because everybody needs to live somewhere and start to talk about, hey, we are still in amazing times with respect to lending rates. And have you had a conversation around, you know, where you want to live, you know, right now and of course, with with people being more remote, obviously, remote working is is not going away anytime soon. People are moving, this is such a great time. So as an agent, I know agents are always thinking about well, why should I call somebody? You know, what should I say? We just here’s a perfect example. Call them and talk about you don’t have to talk about rates itself, but talk about what’s going on with rates. Joe, what do you think about that?

Joel Schaub 18:48
Well, one of the things that you hit on that’s perfect, there is just being educational to your people, right. And so many people do it the wrong way. Now listen, I know people want to say we want to buy right away because rates could be going up, right? We have that instinctual thing where we would like to close more business today than in the future. But I always feel like if you lead with fear, it’s not the best way to create a long term business plan. And so we do the exact opposite. We educate and we say whether you might right now or six months from now, you’re going to be fine, because rates are going to stay low. Okay? And that’s true. Okay, at least for the end of 2021 into 22. But so many agents do the opposite. And it might work for them. They might say, Guys, we got to get you out to look at homes right now, because rates are gonna go up. That’s not really true. That’s not necessarily the case. So I always want to be honest, you want to lead with advice that’s truthful. And right now you’re hearing it from me, the feds are not going to raise rates until 2023. Does that mean that it’s going to stay this low? Maybe not. It could be a little bit higher a little bit. lower. But what we’re worried about is, are these rates going to go back up to four or five or 6%? And here’s my hot take, no, we will see rates all of this year and even next year that have either a two or a three handle on them. So a little bit below three, a little bit above three, even if rates leveled out at the end of next year, on three and a half percent for a 30 year fixed. It’s still lower than 98% of all mortgages that were created before 2018.

D.J. Paris 20:32
Unbelievable. Isn’t that something? Now, for everyone listening? What if you just listened back to what Joel just said, and you took some notes? And you called everybody you know, and said, Hey, I was just listening to a podcast with a lender, who was giving some suggestions about how to think about rates that are coming up, and have a very, you know, informational conversation and say, I just wanted to give you an update on on what I’m hearing in the industry, that imagine if if your buyer or your seller got that phone call. They say hey, I was just calling. I was just listening. I wanted to give you guys an update on rates, here’s what’s going on. Would they find that interesting? Maybe or maybe not, but at the very least, they’d be appreciative that you thought about them. You’re not asking for a sale, you’re not asking for a referral, you’re giving information? You’re so right, DJ. Oh, yeah. I mean, if I was an if I was a producing agent, I would literally just take notes from everything you just said. And I would call everybody I know and say, hey, just a quick little market update, just want to let you know what’s going on with rates lending update, rather, and just was thinking about you have a great day, that’s all I would do. And it would, it would be so well received, because nobody’s doing that.

Joel Schaub 21:46
And to add one more thing to that here to wrap up on this is that most of your competition is doing it differently. They’re selling fear, they’re they don’t know, they’re not taking the time to tune into great podcasts like yours, DJ that bring on information and experts to talk. So when they call, what they’re focused on is getting that deal done right now. And if that’s you right now, that’s okay. But to really build it to that next level, you don’t necessarily care where your clients buying in six weeks or six months, they’re gonna come back to you because you were honest, and you were helpful, and you weren’t pushy, and you are creating value and you are educating them, versus the other people that are trying to push and push just to get the sale done, will take the sales when they come and those will result in a lot more referrals. So not just closing a transaction, you guys closing it with empathy and education so that they want to go and tell people, I got the agent, I know that there’s a lot of agents that you might know, call my guy or girl, she really took care of me. And that’s the difference.

D.J. Paris 22:52
For everyone listening, I want you to think about the lender, if you’re a real estate agent that you’re currently working with, are they giving you that the same sort of information, and the same sort of encouragement and long term vision and strategy that Joel is providing? And if the answer is not really, you know, we don’t really have that kind of relationship, you may want to consider partnering up with Joel, because he is, of course, able to do this with lots of different agents out there. And also anyone who’s interested in buying a home of course, Joel and his team would love to speak to them as well. But Joel does partner with agents and the information he’s giving us is the same information he gives all the agency works with, this is what he does, this is no different than how he spends the rest of his day. I know because I am also a client of jewels. This is the exact conversation I had with Joel without microphones when I was buying my condo earlier this year. And guess what, how awesome is that? Do you want somebody who can provide that sort of education? The answer, of course is yes. And if you’re not currently getting that, and you do want to look at a lender who’s able to give you that level of service, Joel, what’s the best way someone should reach out to you?

Joel Schaub 24:06
Yeah, and it happens quite a bit. DJ people will actually call directly 773-654-2049 You can even test me on weekends. Guy. The idea here and you don’t know this yet. But before we go this week, we had a client closing hear from somebody who tuned into the podcast back in February was a realtor who is moving out of state and just this week closed and they were so thankful that they got connected and so they were out of state and now they moved to our state. And it’s one of those things where you’re really truly giving back and adding value. Yeah, we’re absolutely I help agents, not just with their own clients but on their own transactions.

D.J. Paris 24:50
Well, that is I am I did not know that. So thank you for sharing that. It really warms my heart to think that I was able to through the magic of this this little show that we do was able to connect you with with another agent who needed your services. So for everyone else out there, if you’re not getting that attention from the lender that you partner with, consider working with Joel and guaranteed rate, you’re probably familiar with guaranteed rate. They’re amazing. They’re great. I have used them and I have referred many clients to Joel and he has just always taken unbelievable care of them, which is no surprise because of how successful he is. So definitely reach out to him, you can reach him on email, which is [e-mail], or via his phone, text or email, sorry, text or calling, which is 773-654-2049. Joel, thank you once again for being on the show. As always, guys, you’ve been with us for years and years, always providing great value always telling our audience what they need to hear and what and, and showing up consistently like like you do for all of your clients. We’re so thrilled to have you as a partner. I want to ask everyone before you sign off, just please do help us do one thing, which is tell a friend think of one other real estate professional that could benefit from hearing this kind of information about branding from Joel and send them a link to our podcasts and then over to our website, which is keeping it real pod.com Or just have them pull up a podcast app search for keeping it real and hit that subscribe button. And Joel thank you so much once again and we will see everybody on the next episode.

Joel Schaub 26:28
Remember to be authentic and remember to be passionate. Go out there and get it everybody. Thanks DJ. Appreciate you