401: Elevating the Mortgage Experience- with Michael Creed

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That being said, LinkedIn is a channel that you will find me on. Just search for Lori Highby. You can simply click the follow button as I post daily information about marketing strategy tips, all podcast episodes, and upcoming events. If you'd like to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection request that references Social Capital. I can't wait to hear from you.

Social Capital Podcast is sponsored by Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency that believes in order to successfully market to your ideal customer, you first need to understand that customer. And you can learn more at KeystoneClick. com.

Today's guest is Michael Creed. He is the branch manager for Luminate Home Loans, Brookfield and Waukesha, Wisconsin locations, but he does much more than just manage. In fact, Michael wears many hats at his job, from running his own personal production team to creating systems, policies, and procedures for. Branch processing. Michael does it all. In addition, he also coaches the loan officers and other team leads at his branch, working hard to ensure his team is set up for success.

As a homeowner, before he even graduated college, Michael's very familiar with the pain points that most homeowners and prospective homeowners face. He loves working with clients that are willing to trust his expertise to get mortgages closed quickly while also improving their quality of life with a holistic financial plan.

When at work, Michael is energized by all of his amazing clients and hardworking staff. Outside of work, you'll find Michael rock climbing, alpine skiing, mountain biking, weightlifting, attending church, or going on other various outdoor adventures.

Michael, welcome to the show.

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[00:02:16] Lori Highby: Yeah, I was anticipating reading off a lot more random activities that you like to do because I know you are quite the adventure individual

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[00:02:29] Lori Highby: This is true But let's let's start talking about the mortgage space. How did you get into that? I mean just it's such a random spot to pick. Yeah, I'd love to hear your story.

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And it was because of money. I mean, that's what it's going to be. I bought my first house while I was still in college. I also got married while I was still in college. My first kid was born while I was still in college. We were, you know, I'm an overachiever, have been my whole life.

I was not happy with the dollar amounts that I was able to earn while I was in school and wildly disappointed with the opportunities that came after going to school, because that was a lot of work to do all those things at a time. And so I had been managing a camera store during college and I did have a weird experience.

It took me a few more than four years to get my four year degree to start because I had to become a resident in Wisconsin versus Michigan. Long story. We don't need to get into that today. Bottom line was. I did not work that hard that long to basically get a couple thousand dollar a year raise going into the profession that I had chosen, which was corporate finance and international business, an area I was very passionate about.

And so it all comes down to money. I saw an ad promising a six figure commission in the first year. They, I mean, the ad knowing HR stuff that I do today was totally illegal. But it got my attention and, and it worked. I made 126, 000 the first year in the business and I was hooked. So that's how I started it.

And then, you know, I think a follow up to that is why I'm in it. Over the years, made crazy amounts of money. No, I wouldn't say that I believe this as a 25 year old, but I would say it as a 45 year old today, no 25 year old should be making that kind of money because I blew it just as fast as I made it. I had no plan or nothing, you know?

And so over time, I realized that having that kind of dollar, you know, that kind of income was, you know, it just was not what bought the happiness that I thought it would, or brought the happiness that I thought it would, right? So it's really changed over the years, as you mentioned when you were giving me that great introduction as well, into a very different process and whatnot.

But yeah, I mean, if I was to say one, what got me into the mortgage business, it was all about the money to start with. And that's the absolute last reason I'm in it today. But that's how I got in.

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So, appreciate that. Why do you do, What do you do differently that you feel has led to your success?

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We have a joke. You just, you know, it kind of goes around. There's memes about it too, or it's like, be better. And that's can be sarcastic, but for us, that means that we're going to be better than we were the day before every day, and we're going to do things differently. We're in a business that's chock full of people that do what we do.

It's a commodity at the end of the day and mortgages. And so we need to do it differently. And so really what we do differently that leads to our success is everything. We spend a ton of time, money and effort on the front end, making sure. that our clients know that we're treating this like the largest transaction of their lives as opposed to just another transaction, right?

And that's born out of that first house. So, you know, we talked about me being an overachiever a little bit. I'm also a very A type personality, if you're familiar with the DISC profile, I have scored multiple times a 99 on the DISC profile for a D. Like, very much a decisive driver individually. Yeah, like, it's not, it's nothing to be proud of, by the way, because typically people that hire real jerks, and I'm a recovering jerk, it's been real.

But bottom line is, is that it came to the fact that when I bought my first house, as a college student, as a young husband, a brand new father, like, I had no idea what was going on at any point in the process and, you know, if you understand the personality type I just described, that person needs to know what's going on, and I was constantly frustrated with the fact that these individuals I entrusted to help me with the largest transaction of my life to date, you know, financially, right?

Some big deals, like getting married, having kids, those are big deals too. But I mean, in dollars, buying a house is the largest thing I'd ever done in my life. And they treated me just like anybody else. And I didn't need to know the details and didn't get any options. I was just, here's what you do.

So we built our entire process. Or I'm making sure that our consumers feel informed. Every person, the first thing they know out of me when they're introduced to me for a mortgage will understand that I know that informed consumers make wise choices regarding their finances. And so we will take the time to get to know our clients, understand exactly what they're trying to accomplish, both short term and long term with their financial goals.

And then work to curate their lending options that help them meet it. Bottom line, we treat it like the largest transaction of their life. Now, in the case of a marketing perspective, there's some other really cool things that we do that set us apart. And I know you know this already, Lori, but your listeners probably don't.

Sure. Yep. Yep. We really take the time to not only understand those financial goals, but also understand why they're buying a house, what's driving this, what their favorite things are, what their favorite songs, their favorite snacks, their favorite, all the things, you know, just today I got to meet a client for the first time.

And one of the reasons they're buying a house is because their dog is, you know, they have a dog and they want to have some space to run. Well, that's cool. That's good to know, but I wanted to see a picture of this dog. It was a Bernadoodle. It's a Bernese mountain dog doodle, which, but a mini one, they said.

So I'm like, I can't see any Bernese Mountain dogs. I think it's like, you know, mini is relative when you look at the big ones. It's still probably, I saw the picture of the dog and it was maybe 70 pounds. But um, no, but it's not just that it's just like, what's the dog's name and why would, and then he told me the dog's name told me who the dog was named after.

And we'll remember that stuff because those are the ports of the details that matter to these people. You know, the clients that closed a couple hours ago here in the office, completely different set of clients. But when they came in for their closing, the whole lobby was set up just for them. Their names are everywhere.

There's balloons, there's celebratory things about being closing, their favorite snacks and candies were waiting for them. I'm sorry. Favorite snack and beverage was waiting for them at the closing table when they come in to buy their house. And then when they leave, we're going to make them feel like the paparazzi are here.

And my team has done this. I'm sure it's probably already on Facebook and Instagram and everything, even just because of what we do. But these guys have walked away feeling like we treated them like a million dollars. And at the end of the day, we did, because they literally trusted us with the largest transaction of their life.

And so we have so many nuances that are all based around that mindset that we do, and we keep adding to them. You know, we, this isn't something we just did and we refine it and get it better all the time, but that's by far the thing that's led to our success.

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[00:09:26] Michael Creed: I get people to talk about us by having them feel like we love them because we do.

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You really minimize the whole buyer's remorse component of this. Nicely done.

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[00:09:57] Lori Highby: No problem. So what do you do outside of work for fun? I know you, you rambled, we rambled off a handful of them, but let's talk a little bit more about that.

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So I'm a very rigid individual. My coach, even, he doesn't think this is a bad thing, by the way, but he says I have a militaristic style routine, and that's very true. Every hour is accounted for, every minute would be a better way to look at it. But for fun, and a lot of that is just that. Like, if I were to look at the fun part of my life outside of work, it's all about self care. And to me, what that self care looks like is making sure that my physical body is in the best shape that it possibly can be so that my mind can be free to think and really create.

And that's, that's a struggle. There's no doubt about that. But the biggest things that, you know, on a day to day basis, I work out five days a week. And of those days, I work out two workouts each of those five days. So it's a, you know, it's like a lifting workout in the morning, and then some sort of cardio or mobility, you know, in the evening.

And then eating is a huge part of it. Like making sure I'm taking care of my body and eating the right food. I really focused a lot of time on that. And to me, that's fun because then I feel great. And I'm always playing with it. And that's what I think is very different about me is like, I don't ever just get to be okay with the status quo. You know, some crazy things that what people might think are crazy that I've implemented in my life in the last couple of months, that might sound like it's not for fun, but for me, it really, it really has brought in more joy is no coffee, like at all. And if you know me, I was a huge coffee junkie.

I'm talking two nitros from Starbucks a day, kind of coffee guy with caffeine coming out of my ears. And you're probably like, Whoa, this guy. Isn't having any caffeine right now. So imagine what I'd be like on caffeine. Cause I know I talk fast naturally and I'm always on the go, but getting rid of caffeine, big thing.

And I've been playing with that because to me, that's fun. Cause I feel better. And it really, for me feeling better is just being steady all day long. Another thing we're not doing is no TV in our house anymore during the week, which has been amazing. And that's been, that's been amazing, not just because I have so much more creative time, but also found out that my, I only have one kid left at home.

The other one's in college already. He doesn't go up to his room and just bury himself when the TV's not on. He hangs out by us and talks. So we're getting like an hour a night with our 16 year old that we were not getting before simply because the television was on. Cause in his mind, he was like, well, they're watching TV. They don't want to talk to me, which of course was not the point, but we were sending that message as parents. So that's the weekly stuff and then outside of that, you know, if we get into the other things that you mentioned, my biggest passions that I do less regularly, but still quite regularly are mountain biking in the summertime.

I am a coach with a local NICA, which is National Intersplastic Cycling Association, a NICA league here we do practices for three months out of the year, a couple times a week. And I get to ride with the varsity guys. So it's usually a killer workout for me as well. Cause we're cruising.

And I tail it up because these 18, you know, 16 to 18 year olds are faster than me by a long shot, considering they're less than half my age. Mountain biking and then rock climbing as often as I can. And in the winter time, I usually go out West a handful of times to go skiing. I very rarely ski in Wisconsin anymore.

But I do have friends who live in really cool places on mountains that I get to visit a few times a year and go skiing with. So those are the big things that I do outside. And obviously, I totally missed my family and my wife. I promise I spend time with them all the time.

Here's the reality of the rigidity of my life. My wife and I have a scheduled date night every single week. We go to different places. We do cool things. It doesn't have to be the same thing all the time, but we have time on the calendar to make sure that we get our time together. And I also do the same with my son where we get breakfast every day, once a week, just to make sure we're catching in because while I do see them a lot more than just once a week, we want to have that intentional, always carved out time where there's no, no technology to simply just be and chat and keep in touch.

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[00:14:13] Michael Creed: You gotta be ready for that. You know, if you do that, your brain has all this freedom all of a sudden to create and be, it's scary at first, not gonna lie. But also when you look back, especially if you journal it you're like, you go into warp speed as far as things that you get done because all of a sudden you have all this clarity, but you're exactly right.

It came, that was all born out of distraction. I'm, I was told by my coach this year that my success, and maybe it was a late part of last year that he said this, but it doesn't matter. My success is going to be driven based on what I stop doing, not what I start doing. And he's absolutely right. I mean, I do a lot, and I need to stop doing a lot. You know, and so that's where that, and some of it's, some of it's good and some of it's going to have some, you know, or maybe it's just like for me, the TV was, it wasn't like I was addicted to it, but it was just like the way to decompress. The caffeine was what I thought was just normal. I always did it. The other thing I didn't mention is I barely drink anymore. And that's coming from a guy who drank pretty much a glass. I mean, it wasn't drunk every night, but I had a cocktail, probably five nights a week. You know, one, one, or, and then, you know, maybe two on the weekend nights or whatever.

So that is also, I mean, I'll have a glass of wine once every couple of weeks now at best. Like all these things that I've stopped doing that have nothing to do with business, but have absolutely changed the trajectory of relationships in my life and also the growth that the business has taken.

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Fascinating. Wow. That's awesome. I feel like you're coaching me on some of these things cause I've over, I tend to over commit so, which, which wears you down. But more about you here. If you could go back to your 20 year old self, what would you tell yourself to do more of less of or differently with regards to your professional career?

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Like I just didn't want this system to hold me back. If I would have done an internship, I probably would have been in a very different place than I am today. But the reality is I, I I'm glad that I'm where I'm at. I'm happy that I learned those lessons. So I don't know that I would have changed it, but I think that was for the, maybe the first 10 years of my career when going, wow, this is really hard. This is tough. Why am I always having to grind to like earn a respectable living? Maybe you should have done the internship. But. If we go to the 25 year old version of me, just because that's kind of when I really started my professional life, I think in that regard anyway, would be around that money really isn't the only thing.

Like there's way more to it than that. You know, back then that was when my 99 D got me into a lot of trouble. I remember vividly making a title rep cry because she was taking forever to get me the paperwork that I needed to get my loan closed. And I had no problem telling her that right. And so not understanding myself was a huge art of my growth process that if my 20 year old or 25 year old version would have known, like, dude, study how you're wired, figure out how you think, realize just how different you are than everybody else that you deal with on a regular basis, and that not everybody's like you, and really learn that process of how you're wired and how you can really, in my case, put off many people in light of what you're doing to provide for yourself and really just again, study myself, study yourself would be that advice.

That'd be the biggest one. I think. For sure.

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[00:18:10] Michael Creed: Absolutely not. Yeah.

That's where I go with the, like, like when I was talking about the income I made that first year and how I said nobody should, no, nobody should be making that kind of money that young. I would have never believed that then, but today a hundred percent, you know. But that's really even that statement is, is short sighted, right?

The reality is I would have, if the right person had taken the time. To invest in me, and I knew that they had really my hearted interest and they came in and they were able to tell me that advice of studying myself or save some of that money 'cause it's not gonna be around forever, the, you know, the market's gonna turn off.

You know, this was in: 2004

But I wasn't living like that. You know, it was a big deal, but I think that if I would have the right person in my world and I, again, Go getter, confident, arrogant, whatever words you want to use around it. I didn't have any mentors. I didn't need any mentors I knew it all, right? And so there was nobody else in my sphere of influence anywhere that had a personality strong enough to actually try to tame mine.

And then when I'm like, yeah no, I'm not going to study myself, or you're an idiot. I can make that kind of money right now and be fine with it. Like, no, listen, Creed, like you need to listen to me here. Here's what's going to happen. If you don't, here's what I see happening. I could help you learn from these things because I've been there before.

I probably would have. But the reality is, I don't know that, I mean, at least in my story, there was certainly nobody in my life that would have had the guts to stand up to me. My parents didn't even stand up to me. They always just went with whatever I decided, like going to Marquette University when they were able to give me like a thousand dollars for my whole college career.

And I decided I'm going to take out student loans, pay for Marquette University on my own with no, you know, no scholarships or anything. Like there was never a discussion in my house around like, you sure that's the right move?

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[00:20:08] Michael Creed: You know, so, I'm a huge advocate for that, and I also open my mouth in a lot of times with, I get to work with teens too, that's another thing I didn't mention in the things that I do regularly and every single Wednesday I'm the leader for our high or high school guys for the youth group that is that part of my church.

And so there's generally 10 to 15 guys I'm pouring into every single week and I love it. And we have conversations like this. Like I don't, when they say something stupid, I might not tell them it's stupid, but I'm like, you know, there's some different ways to look at this. You might want to reconsider how you think about it.

You know, because my goal at the end of the day to you, to your point to that question is, I don't think I would have listened. And I don't think that most people would have listened. So I'm on a bit of a mission to be like, put my foot down a little bit and be like, Hey, I know that maybe this is a little weird that I'm speaking up here, but I really want you to hear this because someday you're going to remember this conversation.

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[00:20:58] Michael Creed: So.

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[00:21:07] Michael Creed: Oh boy. All right. Well, thank you for this. So my question to you, Lori is, you know, as a owner of a marketing agency, specifically one that's focused on industry that you do.

I typically experienced just because my wife was in that world when we first got married, that is a super male dominated industry. So why did you get into this particular tract that you focus on the most? At least as I understand it, and if I'm wrong, correct me, because, I mean, let's let your audience know we didn't pregame this.

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[00:21:36] Michael Creed: This is totally off the cuff.

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[00:21:39] Michael Creed: That's what I understand about you and your business. And it's just not what I would consider to be a quote unquote typical place for a female to be. So tell me what how you got into it, why, and maybe why it's been good for you? Cause I'm curious to hear that.

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And servicing manufacturing also is heavily male dominated. There's a couple of things. One, I'm, I position myself as middle brain. Like I love the creativity, but I'm really driven by the data. And so that leans into like the, the programming and the development and the coding side of things, but also my dad was in manufacturing.

So, I mean, I grew up visiting him in the tool and dye shops and, you know, always hearing his stories. And I just absolutely loved learning how things were made. And then when I went to school for marketing and I started learning about you know storytelling and getting your message out there and letting people know that you exist while also curing the stories that my dad was telling me about what he's doing, but also not seeing that publicly available. I really kind of made it my mission to help manufacturers do a better job of telling the story of the amazing things that they're doing that ultimately keep our world functioning, right? So, yeah there's a lot of really cool things happening in, in the U S, in Milwaukee, let alone in the manufacturing space. And these stories are not being shared as well as they could be. So, yeah, that's my mission.

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[00:23:37] Lori Highby: Let's go for it.

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[00:23:43] Lori Highby: The hockey one. It goes back to my dad, honestly.

He played, he coached, he reffed. He's, that was his passion. And he kind of, I soaked it up, you know, I started, I played hockey. Started when I was in high school, actually, because I'm, you know, female, and that wasn't necessarily a female driven sport. But I grew up in an ice rink, basically, if I wasn't in the manufacturing shops, I was in the ice rink.

And I just, I loved it. I thought such a fun sport. I played softball. I ran cross country. I did lots of other sports, but then when I started playing hockey, that was just like, wow. In my opinion, it's the best sport around, so I haven't stopped playing in, since I was 16 years old. I'm not gonna tell you how long that's been though.

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[00:24:32] Lori Highby: And I'm gonna keep playing until my body says you're done.

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[00:24:47] Michael Creed: Oh my goodness. You know, yes, do the hard things.

We talked about some stuff today that some people might say is crazy, but the reality is, is that those who are brave enough to actually do the crazy things see huge changes in their life. And a lot of times those changes are for the better most of the time.

Oftentimes those changes are completely unexpected as well. So we maybe make a transition for one reason or make a change, get rid of something, and find out that all these other really cool things come about because of it. So at the end of the day, be brave, be bold, make the change, give it a shot.

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[00:25:23] Michael Creed: Check out the show notes because there are a few different ways to get ahold of us. But my team line is, if you want to just start a real conversation, you're not going to get put into a funnel or any stretch like that. Just shoot us a text. Our number is 262 696 9048, and that'll be mentioned in the show notes too.

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[00:25:47] Michael Creed: Glad to be here.

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