Welcome to the Wisdom Lifestyle Money Show. I'm your host, Scott Dillingham. The show is designed to help Canadians invest better in Canada and The United States. We are the North America based mortgage financing lender and provide education to both countries. Discover how you can become a better investor and access the financing you need.
Scott Dillingham:Welcome back to the wisdom lifestyle money show. I often get calls from people interested in working here. Maybe they've got their mortgage license. Maybe they work for a bank and they're curious about what it's like. So today's episode is dedicated to going over what it's like working at Lendcity.
Scott Dillingham:We are hiring, so I figured it'd be the perfect time to do this. And if you're not looking for a career in the mortgage industry, at least you'll get to know the behind the scenes and how it all works. So it's, I think it's going to be really cool for whoever's listening today. The one cool thing that I like about working at LensCity is we like to have fun. Now we are very dedicated to the work that we do, but in between, we like to have fun.
Scott Dillingham:When I purchased the building and I set everything up, I've wanted it to be a really relaxing environment. Lots of cool spaces, really renovated. A place that a client would feel good sitting in, where they'd be relaxed. But what I didn't realize is it's created a culture within the team where everybody strives for success. We have a lot of fun and there's no politics.
Scott Dillingham:I think that is super important. When I used to work at the bank and other places, I don't want to pick on the bank here, but when I worked at other places, there was a lot of politics. There was always clicks and people that got along. And if you weren't part of that, you were treated differently. And I've even seen people get promoted that were part of these groups that were not doing the same type of quality work, but just because they were friendly with the boss or something and they're getting raises and the harder workers are not.
Scott Dillingham:And I'm sure you've seen that anywhere and everywhere. It happens, but it doesn't happen here. So that is what I'm really proud of is that does not go on here. I do not want that nor do I tolerate that. So if it were to ever come into the building, it would go as quickly as it came by.
Scott Dillingham:Could tell you that. The political aspect of a career or a job place is not an issue here. Now, as far as doing the mortgages, like we have many different departments at LensCity. We've got the sales departments. We've got the admin departments.
Scott Dillingham:We've got the social media and marketing departments. We've got commercial departments. And then we also have a head office who we work with that takes care of compliance and all the legal aspects of the business. So all in all, there's really five departments. I'm going to touch on each one and how it all works.
Scott Dillingham:I guess depending where you are or what you're doing, right? One, one section might be different than the other. Now, the one cool thing about LensCity for the salary employees and things like that is we do have a profit sharing program. So I think that is really unique. Not all lenders, employers offer a profit sharing program.
Scott Dillingham:So we have that, which is based on our sales. I think it's a really rewarding place for someone to work. Who's getting a salary because the more you put into it, the more you can get back. So I think that's super important when you're applying for a job or working somewhere. So that's really cool that we have that.
Scott Dillingham:The other thing for the sales side of things. And so this will be obviously directly correlated to working at just an independent lender, but if you're at one individual lender, it's like a bucket, right? The lender's products fit within the bucket. On, in the mortgage broker space, there really isn't a bucket it's wide open. So one of the things that I hated about working at the bank is if I could not get the client approved, I had to shake their hand and say goodbye.
Scott Dillingham:And that sucks because it takes a long time to build these relationships with people. And once they're built, you don't want to have to get rid of them. I love the fact that on the broker side of things that we, if a client cannot move forward with option a, we can talk about option B. If option B doesn't work, we've got option C and we can just keep going and going, ultimately presenting options to clients. I actually do remember I was at I was in Toronto at a real estate brokerage there.
Scott Dillingham:I did a lot of stuff with them and they were saying to me, and this is when I worked at the bank, one of their sort of issues was that, and I would say issues with dealing with me was that they wanted me to give more options to their customers if I couldn't help them. And I didn't understand I was lost. And I was like, how do I fix that? I'm sitting here trying to analyze all the different ways that I could give more options because in my mind, I was like, I was telling them everything that we could do. And if we couldn't do it, we couldn't do it.
Scott Dillingham:Right. But then once I started not being at one individual lender and now I have access to a whole bunch of lenders, It clicked and I'm like, that's what they mean by the options. So they were used to working with someone who was a mortgage agent or mortgage broker. And then when they're dealing with one bank, they're having issues because they didn't have options. And so that came to me like that was that issue was brought up to me and I was speaking in front of 50 people.
Scott Dillingham:So I was embarrassed. I'm like, I'm trying everything. I'm doing my best. But I didn't realize the handicap that I had in front of me by working at one lender. So that is a huge thing that I found when you enter the mortgage agent or mortgage broker space.
Scott Dillingham:And I really believe as time goes on and as trust gets built and people know who the good mortgage agents and brokers are versus the ones who may be hard to trust, let's say. I won't say anything else, but we'll just say that they're hard to trust. I can really see the the broker space accelerating. And from some numbers and stats that I've seen, the market share is gaining on the broker side. And it's because our job is to find out your needs and find you the best lender.
Scott Dillingham:Now, maybe you don't want the best rate. Maybe the lowest payments is most important to you. Maybe flexibility to miss payments is important to you. Right? So we find out what your needs are and we match that up.
Scott Dillingham:Whereas a customer, that would be impossible. Just like buying a house, like buying a car. You need an expert to give you advice on what's good and what matches up to you. Yes, you can go out and buy a car on your own. Yes, you can go out and buy a house on your own, but more often than not, if you work with an experienced person and you have a lot of information presented to you, you quickly determine that having that knowledge is really cool.
Scott Dillingham:So that is a great thing that working at LensCity, you have that capability. We have full time underwriters that review all of our files that come in. Because of that, we know what client will get approved where. Right? Or if they cannot get approved, maybe they wanna only, they can only do 5% down and say their credit score is bad.
Scott Dillingham:So in that case, there really would be minimal options, but we'll still go over adding a cosigner. We'll talk about how the client can improve their credit to actually be able to qualify. So we'll touch on all these extra things that help your client to reach their reach their homeownership goals. Another thing that is super important in today's age is social media marketing, right? Video content education, super, super important.
Scott Dillingham:And that is something that we thrive in. I've owned the Canadian real estate network for years and there's more than a thousand articles now. And it's all about real estate investing and buying houses and tips and tricks. If you're flipping, you have market stats on many of the markets across Ontario and Canada that were completed by researchers. So it's solid content and we've got that going on.
Scott Dillingham:We've got this radio show. We've got the podcast. Then we do education videos with our realtor partners. We also do first time buyer seminars, new to Canada seminars, investment property seminars. So with COVID, we've had to hold some of that back because we've got a meeting space here, but we couldn't do those in person meetings.
Scott Dillingham:But as the restrictions are being lifted and COVID is getting more behind us, those things are coming again and again. So really cool stuff. I'll have to take a quick pause, but when I come back, I'll continue about the education we have for clients and for you as a salesperson. And we'll dive into the other aspects of the business. Welcome back.
Scott Dillingham:Okay. Before the break, I was just talking about how we do all of these things and we have all these platforms to educate people. And that is how we run LensCity. It's an education based platform first for all of our clients. So if you're working at a different lender, you're working at a bank that doesn't matter.
Scott Dillingham:And you're looking for that outlet where you can educate clients and be more in front of potential clients. You're gonna want to speak to us about a job here and we'll show you how you can get in front of more people and educate and really help. And I believe in helping first. And then from that, that will help you to meet new people and have more customers. Really important stuff there.
Scott Dillingham:But beyond that, right? We have the social media team that shows the behind the scenes stuff. We've got the videographer that does our interviews for our partners and even our team that you have unlimited access to. Our, like my cost to help you to send out your message, educate people, grow individually. But then you have our admin side, which is incredible.
Scott Dillingham:They are the foundation of LensCity. So oftentimes they're behind the scenes. Right? They're not forward facing at all times, but from what I can find out, besides from the brokers I've spoken to, the companies like in our area, we have one of, if not the one of the largest admin teams around. If you look at the roster on the websites of the different brokers, mainly it's mortgage agents or brokers with just a small amount of admin staff.
Scott Dillingham:We actually have more admins than we do sales staff. And the reason for that is we want to process the client's application extremely fast. In fact, our goal is actually instant. If we can get instant pre approvals, that's what our goal is. And having the administrative team so big, it also allows for, if someone is sick or someone is on vacation, whether that be the sales side or the admin side, the client has a dedicated contact where they can reach out to us and always someone is available to help.
Scott Dillingham:That was one of the biggest issues that I seen working at an independent lender was that when I went on vacation, people would say, oh yeah, we'll cover for you. You trust that. But what was happening was is when I went on vacation, being a top performer, the other person couldn't keep up with my volume plus what they were doing. Things were falling through the cracks and it always felt like it, it was exploding. From that point forward, I felt that even when I was on vacation, I had to work because I couldn't trust someone else with my business and I wanted to maintain that top level of customer service.
Scott Dillingham:So that is a huge thing that's different with Lendcity is that we have that support team. If you need to go on vacation, if you are sick, there's always a team here. And for a customer, what that means to you is that you are always getting the best and fastest service. I'm sure there's been a time in your life. Cause I hear all the time, or someone who this has happened to, where they were dealing with a mortgage person at whatever lender, and then they went on vacation.
Scott Dillingham:It's you don't know where to go. You don't know who to ask for help. And then you go into actual lender and ask for help. And then the people that are there, they don't want to help because it's someone else's file and they're lost and it's a nightmare. So that problem is solved with Lendcity.
Scott Dillingham:The other thing is that the admins are incredibly intelligent with the mortgages. And sometimes they even help and train some of the news sales people just to show them how things work and all that good stuff. So they're extremely knowledgeable, which is a great asset as well, because if anybody has any questions, there's always someone available to help answer those questions. So it's really neat. So that part is cool.
Scott Dillingham:Then we've got the commercial side, which is really unique. There's a lot of lenders out there that say they do commercial. Obviously the big banks do commercial. There's dedicated people there, But on the broker space, a lot of them say that they'll do commercial and maybe they do. Okay.
Scott Dillingham:But from what I've seen in the market, none of them have a dedicated commercial team, which we do. What that really means to your client is we're going to be able to, through the commercial side, if they're looking at a commercial property, usually we can get the client a larger mortgage, right? Cause I know every lender has their own criteria on what type of property they'll approve and also what type of loan to value. So in other words, how much money they'll lend based on the purchase price and they all have different criteria and they all have different rates. If you're buying an investment property, they all have different cash flow requirements.
Scott Dillingham:So for customers, know usually it's easy to just go to your bank because in the commercial space, there's not a lot going on compared to the residential side. When you look at marketing and things that are out there, But if you do speak to my commercial team, you'll see that it opens up a world of opportunities because they have access to so many different lenders. And we actually do work with the big banks, credit unions, all kinds of stuff. We've got partners at each one of them that will speak to and work with and will optimize your lending or your client's lending. And there's a misconception as well that commercial mortgages, it's only on like apartment buildings, shopping malls, storage facilities.
Scott Dillingham:And for the most part, that's true, but you can also get a commercial mortgage on a single family home. What that means is the client's application is reviewed under a different lens under different qualifications. Right? So that adds further options to the your toolbox, right? If you're someone who's working for us to help your clients to secure the best.
Scott Dillingham:The other thing that's cool is we've got an event planning team. So I actually forgot about them for a second and I shouldn't have because they do a lot of stuff for us. They run our golf tournament. They run our charity events. They run our snow angel program where we shovel random people's driveways.
Scott Dillingham:People call in and tell us someone who's elderly or someone who's in need or handicapped or whatever, and they let us know and we'll shovel their driveway for them when we get those bad snowstorms. We help in so many different ways in the community. And we've got two dedicated people for that help with that. And that's all they do is set up events, community outreach, all that good stuff. So we've been able to really get out there and help a lot of families around Christmas time.
Scott Dillingham:We get these gift baskets full of food and we find out families that are in need and we help support them and give them their Christmas dinners and all kinds of great stuff that we do. So when you are working here as well, you get that really good feel good feeling from helping someone and you can participate in any of these things, but also for the staff, right? We do like movie nights, staff parties. The last cool party we did, we rented a limo bus and we took a drive around. We went to go see the lights at Jackson Park there.
Scott Dillingham:And then we had a really nice dinner and it was a lot of fun. So we do all these really cool things together as a team. And it's just really rewarding, rewarding for everybody. So we are growing the number one position we are looking for and hiring for is mortgage agents. Now you have to have your license to be a mortgage agent.
Scott Dillingham:So if you are working at a bank, you'd have to get that. Or if you already are a mortgage agent or a broker somewhere else, we'll consider you as well. But we are looking for experienced people because our team is quite experienced and we want to optimize our speed and service. So someone who's brand new wouldn't necessarily fit the bill because we're past that initial growth stage. And now we're at the stage where we actually need help and where speed is our number one important thing that we want for the clients.
Scott Dillingham:We need experienced people. So if you work at a bank or you're a mortgage agent or mortgage broker, and you're doing $10,000,000 in annual volume or more per year, we wanna meet with you. We'll show you how we can help you build your business, get more leads, provide a better customer experience, faster service, and have a lot more fun without the politics. So if you are interested, give my cell a call directly at (226) 348-7884. Looking forward to meeting with you and chatting with you.
Scott Dillingham:Thank you so much for tuning into the show today. If you found value, please follow the show and rate it five stars. It would mean the world to me. And lastly, all the resources that we spoke about are at the bottom of the show notes. Looking forward to seeing you on the next episode.