|
RON QUINTERO:
I know that you’ve had some big changes,
particularly in the last 12 months recently,
getting married, and, you know, you now have a
second wife because your first wife is the
Marine Corps. What I admire about you is your
ability to continue to maintain a mortgage
operation at the same time serving your country
the way that you have.
ADAM DOYLE:
As with everything, it starts with a story.
The person I was always brought up to be was
somebody who tried to live life to its
fullest and find the most exciting and
engaging way to experience life.
In my roots there are several people - some
family members, grandparents,
great-grandparents, uncles, and so on that
have been Marines. Coming out of college I
walked out with a degree in economics and a
degree in international affairs and I
essentially assigned to myself that the
economics was how I was going to pay for the
fun and the international affairs was how I
was going to make the fun.
I joined the Marine Corps as a reservist
because it was just after the first Gulf War
and I was waiting for a flight school slot
and wanted to be a fighter pilot and all the
crazy stuff that goes with that. Being a
product of the Top Gun generation. As I was
waiting for my spot, I started a mortgage
company because I figured I had to pay the
bills.
Well, that evolved into Global Financial
that was, literally as most of us all do, I
started it out of a room in my house and
slowly and methodically grew it into a
company that, was to pay the bills while I
was waiting for flight school.
The Marine Corps I did very well in and long
story short, I’m currently a platoon
sergeant in a light armored recon unit
where, unfortunately, given the events of
the past years, we were called up and
activated. I had always worked my company
around the premise that at some point I may
have to drop my stuff and go, and sure
enough 9/11 did it. And without getting too
much into the details of that, I had to
depart for the area. My staff, had always
been trained under the idea that they were
going to step up and they did just that.
And they did just that with a very
impressive showing.
The week before I deployed for Iraq the
company gave me a present and it was a
satellite phone. I guess they thought at
some point I’d find the free time to call in
and check on them, which was kind of funny
because I ended up doing it a couple times -
three times maybe in - in nine months, but
literally they did not get the oversight of
the boss looking over their shoulder. Long
story short, I came back and I came back to
a fully operational company. My guys had
done a fantastic job of continuing to
maintain our clients. We have always been a
referral-based company and client retention
had always been the key of the ethos.
RON QUINTERO:
So right in the middle of the absolute best
refinance market that the mortgage industry
has seen in the past 40 years, you end up
spending over 20 months of that period of
time in the Middle East. Is that accurate?
ADAM DOYLE: I
didn’t see the refinance boom begin. I was
gone and not paying any attention. The
clients we had we kept and they were all
very happy, to keep their business with our
company because we built our company on a
client for life mentality.
RON QUINTERO:
Was there any crossover that you learned
from the military and running your business?
And how important was building the
infrastructure and building the team and
having everybody aligned with a common
mindset? What are some of the things that
you do? Do you hold regular meetings? Are
you constantly setting standards?
ADAM DOYLE: It
would be impossible to avoid crossover. It’s
absolutely all integrated. And Global
Financial is definitely not run like a
military organization, however, we all tend
to understand that mission accomplishment is
the only thing that matters and troop
welfare is a very big thing for me, which,
you know, is a secondary priority in the
Marine Corps after troop mission
accomplishment.
As an organization we all have it deeply
ingrained. I find the people that believe in
this before I even train them. It’s all
about the client, it’s all about getting the
job done, delivering on time and as
promised, making it a smooth and efficient
process. But by the same token the secondary
priority is to have troop welfare.
As a team is we do global days where we
go on rafting trips or skydiving or, a
ballpark day or anything like that. And we
try to do it pretty regularly. We do have,
Monday morning staff meetings where we go
through the pipeline, and we do the drill
with a status report on every file.
Our Loan officers have sales meetings.
We work on sales techniques, we role-play,
which is just like the Marine Corps where
you do rehearsals before you go out. We do
game play scenarios, we run what if and
hypothetical deals and if somebody’s got a
tough one we’ll, do a joint presentation to
help everybody get the deals closed.
|
|
RON QUINTERO:
Do you mind getting to some of the specifics
of past couple of years in terms of millions
funded? What you did last year? And what
you’re projecting going forward for this
year? Do you mind sharing those numbers?
ADAM DOYLE: I
don’t want to sound like the standard
mortgage guy who triples his numbers anytime
he’s asked. But, we’ve consistently been a
solid shop. I’ve always built the business
around myself and had other loan officers in
the company add to the pie. It was always
built around the primary infrastructure of
the operations team and truly focused around
client retention rather than going out and
doing broad-based marketing. So what
we have done in the past has been, a slowly
accelerating curve from back in the days
where we had the $12 million a year. Back in
the later days, around $50 million a year.
Today we’re in the 200 range pretty
consistently, pretty consecutively. Again,
not having experience in the quote/unquote
refi boom, we didn’t see a huge surge and
frankly, there was no marketing being done
at all. So that was all client retention
during that period and that was something
like a hundred and some odd million.
RON
QUINTERO: And
that was current client accommodations for
the refinancing with your doing no outside
cold consumer-direct marketing for
refinances. Did I interpret that correctly?
ADAM DOYLE: The
only outside calls made were return calls to
clients who called us asking for a refi.
RON
QUINTERO:
I’ve had the opportunity
to work with you in the past. It’s been about a
year and a half now? And we’ve been able to
launch some different tactics and some different
strategies. Some of our accomplishments in the
past year and a half are, number one, adopting
the rate loss strategy, number two, beginning to
deploy the continuation sheet document from
myresourcecenter.com. Going through the process
of then integrating also the continuation sheet
into your process to be able to leverage
additional relationships off your current client
base. I think I just pretty much summed up the
nature of our relationship.
ADAM
DOYLE: Yes, that’s accurate. And the
guidance on the strategic vision of where I’m
taking the company, which, we talked at length
about.
RON
QUINTERO: Let’s jump in on that part
regarding the vision - your strategic vision
going forward. 2005 has been seen within the
mortgage industry as a transitional year. And I
loved the statement that you made earlier that
your company really didn’t react in the past to
the symptoms of the market, i.e. refinances. So
everybody just abandons what they are doing and
not pay as close of attention to their
customers.
You stayed mission focused during that period of
time, and the ebb and flows of the business
seemed to not rock your boat. Where do you see
2006 for your company, and what are you
positioning for the future, Adam?
ADAM
DOYLE: We definitely see the market
shifting. Refinances are becoming less of a
rate directed issue and more of a need-based
issue. We’ve always been facilitators and,
frankly, I’ve a bunch of our clients, no, this
refinance doesn’t make sense because I
understand that you have the need to feel like
you’ve got the lowest rate on the block, but
it’s not going to be worth what it costs you.
And those same people call us back six months
later when they decide actually what we really
need is an addition on the house. And that
always is a much more profitable transaction, of
course. Again, you’re eliminating the am I
saving an eighth and what are your closing
costs, to how much of an addition can I get and
when can we close?
Our vision continues to be the same regardless
of the market shifts and the fact that rate and
term refinances will dwindle. What we have
always been about is financial planning and
counseling our clients to make sure that we’re
conducting the best transaction not just for now
but five years from now.
Then also 2006 is going to be a very exciting
year for us. We’ve been working for two years,
on a merger with Vanguard. And Vanguard, if -
for those that aren’t aware of it, is the first
in the industry partnership of mortgage brokers
to form a consolidated entity where we’re going
to actually have a huge depth and breadth of
buying power of the top business practices in
the industry, that are best Fortune 500
benefits.
And I’ve been elected as one of the founding
partners. I’ve been asked to be on the advisory
counsel and work with the board on the
implementation of this, which has been a very
difficult process. It’s the first in the
industry, first to market, so of course it’s a
difficult process.
|
|
But we’ve just recently
launched and are rolling out with Vanguard
and the founding partners are all very
excited about where this is going to take
all of our businesses because what it does
is it gives us a huge buying power, which is
a wonderful thing for pricing because it’s
all about dollars down. But it also gives
us the best practices. Currently there are
36 founding partners. I now have 35 peers,
which I’ve never had before. It’s
fantastic. But also we have the Fortune 500
level benefits that I would never be able to
afford as a 20-man shop.
RON
QUINTERO: So
basically - let me summarize. You’ve formed
a national alliance, but not with just
anybody. You’re really seeking out the
people that are, number one, productive, and
number two, they had to buy in mentally
first and they had to totally buy into the
global value proposition before they’re ever
on your team.
ADAM
DOYLE:
Correct.
RON
QUINTERO: I
think you’re mimicking that exact same
process now with your deployment of the
Vanguard model. Is that an accurate
statement?
ADAM
DOYLE:
Yes, that’s correct.
RON
QUINTERO: So
you’ve just adopted the same strategy moving
forward It’s the same principles that have
made Global Financial a successful
operation, and now taking this to the
Vanguard level. Let’s go fast forward. Where
do you see the Vanguard model going in the
next one, three, five years? What is your
strategic objective here? What are some of
the possibilities?
ADAM DOYLE:
From the initial phase and its tremendous
efficiency and economies of scale, the
efficiencies brought about by the single
platform that we have where we access the
top, top investors in the industry. And
you’re not going through the conduits that
you can close because you know they can
close. Meanwhile there’s a better price guy
but you know you can’t close with them as
easily.
We actually have delegated in-house
underwriting for all the top investors and
thereby we’re bypassing the middle tier -
super burgers, as they were. So economies
and efficiencies, we are not only improving
our buying power, we’re reducing a lot of
the rate program comparison time so that I
can give a quote to a client in three
minutes with it being underwritten in-house
same day, and close that same deal within
the week nationally.
And ultimately on the takeout it gives us
just a tremendous flow because of Vanguard’s
concept is that they’re basically a
consolidated closing secondary shop and
we’re doing the front end sales and it is a
whole bunch of work off of our plate from
the get go.
RON
QUINTERO: So
regardless of a potential down the road
opportunity, the current environment allows
for expanded profitability as well as access
to resources that the standalone person
couldn’t get access on their own. Is that
accurate?
ADAM DOYLE:
That’s accurate, in addition to the fact
that it’s also because of the economies of
scales and is a reduction in expenses by
having consolidated HR, consolidated
accounting, payroll etc. So not only are we
more profitable, more efficient, quicker to
turn, which means quicker to capture more
deals, but also have a reduced overhead with
better benefits
RON
QUINTERO: The
environment as it sits today is more
profitable, more advantageous, more rapid
process. As an example, you shared with me
in conversations, your platform for pricing
loans and your private proprietary software
platform to be able to do that. Would you
mind expanding on that?
ADAM DOYLE:
Absolutely. The Vanguard platform is
tremendous. What it allows us to do is a
single upload. Each of my branches actually
use a different LOS that you can upload a
Fannie Mae 32 file, automatically shop it
from both guideline standpoint and pricing
adjusted standpoint across the top ten
investors, come back immediately with
options of which price you want to lock it
with, lock it immediately, submit it through
a single submission platform to one
underwriter who can underwrite it. That
right there just is a tremendous, tremendous
benefit.
RON
QUINTERO: Adam,
is there any parting words or ideas that
you’d like to be able to share with us or a
few statements or principles that you run
your business by or that you live your life
by?
ADAM DOYLE: Well,
you know, with respect to the business I
think if anybody’s going to walk away with
something, it all comes back to the
fundamentals, and really what that means is
it’s about doing a good job and being a good
guy and making a promise and sticking to it.
And having an operation behind you that can
support your promises. And knowing that
you’re making promises you can keep. We have
our pillars of business. No
getting-rich-quickly, no mailers,
telemarketers, or anything like that. It’s
basically a post-closing marketing effort
where corporate does all the marketing for
all the post-closing clients. We retain
those that we keep. It’s easier to keep a
client than it is to get a new one.
The one thing I’d say that we do and we do
well, and we hope that others can do is the
fundamentals. Stick to the basics. Do a good
job, believe in what you’re doing, and be
honest.
|
