When a buyout forced April Janas to reevaluate everything, her values and team’s needs led her to one place: CrossCountry Mortgage. If you’re thinking about your next move, April’s interview with Hunter Marckwardt can’t be missed.

Hunter: Welcome to CCM Talks. I'm Hunter Marckwardt, and I'm here with April Janas, one of my new favorite humans. April, how are we today?

April: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

Hunter: Oh my pleasure. So you, first of all, senior vice president out of Washington. Huge producer. And one of the things we wanted to talk about today was just like, people hate onboarding, right? Any more, you hear about these experiences. You've actually, you enjoyed the experience. Can you give us a little more info on that?

April: I think it all really had to do with just my mindset and my approach to the whole thing. For me, after being with my company for 11 years, we found out they're getting bought out by another company. And so that really just forced me to do a lot of inward self-evaluation, looking at who I was as a loan officer, what my team needed, what my, what I needed. And, I got really clear on my mission and my values and what I was looking for in a company. And then I researched over 20 mortgage companies.

Hunter: 20?

April: And went deep on about five, including the one that was buying our company. You know, I wanted to give them the opportunity too, but I think having that, like, personal clarity really helped. And CrossCountry was the only one that checked all the boxes.

Hunter: And then once, once you decided to do it, I mean, from an actual onboarding perspective, how I mean, how was that? Did you prep your team?

April: Yeah. So, you know, as a leader, I have two branches. And so, you know, having I think being thorough and getting clear on my mission and values and what we needed, being confident about CrossCountry really it just was encouraging and casting the vision with my team and letting them know, like, this is why we're here.

We made the right decision. We had a lot of peace and confidence around our decision, but understanding that change is hard, and so we had to embrace it and we had to be flexible and adapt. And we knew because of all the research that I'd done, that CrossCountry was the right place. And so we just really had to be open to that change and couldn't be rigid in what we've been doing for the last 11 years.

I mean, some of my people had been with me for 15 years, you know, and so it's really hard going from being a rockstar and knowing where everything is to being new and not knowing where everything is. And, yeah, we just rolled up our sleeves and stayed open to it. You know, there were days that were frustrating, but we kept our eyes on the big picture.

We just knew that we were in the right place and that you guys knew what you were doing. And so we just trusted the process and everybody just really wrap their arms around us too at CrossCountry.

Hunter: So humility would be a little piece of onboarding.

April: Yeah, definitely. Definitely. It's definitely humbling for sure. But just yeah, trusting the process and the people around us and knowing we were in the right place, I think is a big piece.

Hunter: Sweet. If you had to think, like if you looked at like three things that corporate did well on the onboarding process, what do you think?

April: I was really impressed with the onboarding support team. There was an entire team of like 12 or 15 rockstars from every different department that were assigned to us. So we knew when we hit snags or didn't know what buttons to push. And we'd worked in Encompass before, but this this Encompass was like on steroids. We, but we just had this team of people, any questions that we had Blend, Encompass, just marketing. We had a place to go and they would quickly help us push through the snags.

Hunter: Got it. Where was that place?

April: On Teams.

Hunter: I need to get better teams.

April: It was a very noisy chat for awhile and I just couldn't imagine doing their jobs, but we felt like we were their priority. And because when you're transitioning and you're producing at a high level, and we're trying to serve our clients and our agents seamlessly. So it meant a lot to me to have those people supporting us. Yeah. I mean, that was that was, I think, the biggest thing.

Hunter: Okay, so if you're like, imagine someone is watching this right now and they're thinking, I need to prepare for onboarding. What would you like if we said, I think our chief marketing officer says, like, you have to know before you go. What would be the things that you would have to know before you go on a transition?

April: I think one really big thing that I did that that helped the transition go smooth for my clients and my agents was I, even though I came over with three processors, I embraced corporate processing for the first 30 days because as a producer, you know, there's clients and agents calling me every single day trying to, you know, make offers, move forward.

And so leveraging corporate processing, because they were already locked in, they knew the systems, they knew how to, you know, navigate everything. And, make sure that those new loans that were coming in were closing on time.

And then just communicating proactively at a really high level. So before I made the move, I had to call my real estate partners and just make sure that they knew what I was doing and that they had my back with the customers. So if anyone couldn't find me or wasn't, they know I'm super responsive. I told everybody, you know, you know, I'm super responsive. I always respond within ten minutes. If anybody says they can't get ahold of me, please direct them to my new email and my new contact information and all of that stuff.

Hunter: By the way, how much volume are you closing?

April: So last year I closed over $100 million. You know, I have two branches. You know, so, we have a group of people, you know.

Hunter: And I look to, I mean, year to date during a transition, you're still …

April: About to hit 70.

Hunter: That’s amazing.

April: As of this week. Yeah.

Hunter: That’s killer. LOs moving. Loan officers moving, like, if you're transitioning, what advice would you give them?

April: I think you just have to prepare and embrace the change. You know, just know it's not going to be exactly what you did at your previous company. Right? But when you know that you're doing the right thing, you just have to be able to adapt, right? I think one of the keys to success is being open to change and adapting quickly. Whether you stay at your current company or just this mortgage industry in general, but going to a whole new company, you know, you have to be confident in your position and stay open to change.

Hunter: If you had to look at something where it was like, I don't want to do this, but I know I need to. Like in hindsight, what would it like, what would that be?

April: As far as changing?

Hunter: Yeah, like literally where you're like, I don't like, I'm used to doing this. They're telling me to do this. I don't want to, but like, in hindsight, you're like, okay, that worked.

April: Yeah. So probably one of the biggest pain points for me was the Blend system. We had another system at our company that did the same thing that the customer-facing, gathering of documents and all of that. Which I really liked. That was really comfortable with our old system and how it was all set up. Right? And so coming over to Blend, you know, I kicked and screamed a little bit on that.

You know, and, but the corporate support team, they were all so patient and encouraging, even when we were frustrated. They would also cast the vision and explain the values of the system. And so I just trusted her and gave it a chance. And now Blend is actually better than our other system. It has better tools and features in it than our other software had.

Hunter: Right on.

April: But change is hard, right? And especially when you've been somewhere for so long, you know where everything is. You know where all your players are, all the buttons are everything, and you're operating at a high level. It's it's hard to just take everything and plan it into a new platform. Right? So I think give it I kept telling my team and myself to give ourselves grace. Like we're not going to be as fast. We're not going to be as good at what we're doing. Right?

But leveraging corporate processing was huge because it took the pressure of the closing timelines off my team. So then we started assigning loans that were closing 30 days out to the team, so they had more time to navigate through the system and everything.

Hunter: How long did it take you to trust them? Like, I mean, like, I like I just think of, like, my own files, right? It's like, yeah. How long were you like, oh, these people actually have it?

April: For a corporate process?

Hunter: Yeah.

April: Well, they did a really good job, that every single person that we interacted with was such a pro. That every, I feel like everybody had a plan. Everybody. They hopped right on a call with us, told us, asked us what our likes and dislikes are like, how we like to have our process or files process processed. And, they were just so dialed in and so it made me just trust them, you know? She asked how I wanted my clients to be communicated with and, and what their turn times were and everything. There's SLAs and SLPs all over the place.

So I just knew what to expect, and I just I just trusted and I mean, coming from where I was, and where I was so comfortable and I loved my previous company, CrossCountry just turned out to be an absolute upgrade in every single way, which is crazy.

Hunter: I love that. Comfortable isn't necessarily good, right? It's like you got to get uncomfortable. So, Cube, tell me about, like, when you when you came on board, how involved were you with our technology? Understanding our platform. Understanding Cube. Did you use it?

April: Yeah. So, when I was going through all my research of all the companies, two really big things for me. Well, one was I wanted to have a company that valued people and relationships and supported the loan officers and our brands, and the local communities that we served and everything. That was really important to me.

But the other really big piece is tech. We, I really wanted to be with the company who was leveraging and investing and forward-thinking in tech, and Cube was a huge attraction to me when I was in the interview process. To have the integration with everything in one place. You know, I believe systems and processes, especially when you're producing at a, at a high level, it makes or breaks us. Right? And so, Cube gives us daily follow up flows. Working as a team. So my LOA and my processor can see my notes. We all know what our tasks are for the day. So we have task follow-up task management. And just integration in the CRM as well as Encompass. So me as a loan officer, I don't have to log in to encompass every time I want to send a loan summary.

So being able to just stay in Cube and stay out of Encompass, but having that daily follow-up has been huge. And so, turns out when I got here, I didn't realize Cube was so new. You know, and so I ended up helping, I think, in a lot of ways with the development team, you know, showing them from a producer standpoint the little bells and whistles that we need. And again, they were just absolute pros.

Hunter: They’re open to it. Right? No ego.

April: I loved it. You know, the fact that they wanted our feedback and they wanted to hear what we needed and then they implemented it lightning fast so that we had, you know, the follow-ups and, the task management management's a huge one for our team. So every day when we log in, we know what to do. And yeah, they're just just absolute pros. So it's been amazing.

Hunter: I mean, like interviewing you, it's like, were you really this happy coming on board? I mean, it's like you're like the the, you're like, put you on a banner and say, this is why you move.

April: I can't believe how comfortable and happy I was at my other company. And just what a big blessing in disguise it all turned out to be, because I don't think I ever would have actually looked elsewhere. But that process of looking inward at who I am today, 11 years later, as a producer and what I needed in a company is completely different than what I needed in the company when I joined them 11 years ago.

And so it just gave me this reason to really evaluate what I was looking for, what I needed, and then find find something that was better. But, not every day was easy, though. I mean, it, it's definitely hard. It's really humbling going from being a rockstar and and knowing that there's so many people, you know, we have to make new friends. We kept saying, we just got to find our people. We got to make new friends. You know, when you've been in a company for as long as we had, we knew everybody. We knew who to go to for everything. But that's where the onboarding team was amazing. And they just kept the wind and our sails.

Yeah, I it's when I got here, I even told Glenn, I said, like, now I want to share this with other loan officers because I think a lot of people are sitting at their companies and they're complacent. They're comfortable.

Hunter: They're comfortable.

April: They don't realize. And having gone through the deep dive with five of more top companies, I really did get a chance to see some huge holes in people's process. It was very enlightening to see, and CrossCountry is far and above any other company out there, so I think I was excited to join. I was excited to come aboard, and that really helped keep the wind in my sails too.

Hunter: I love it.

April: But yeah, just seeing, what kind of platform CrossCountry has built it. Just I wish more people would take a look at it.

Hunter: Well, April, you're, I mean, you truly are, I mean, I've talked to you, you know, we spent time together in Texas like, you're a wonderful, wonderful human. You're a huge producer. You're like, you're just like, what a company wants in a loan officer. So thanks for joining us. Thanks for being here. Thanks for supporting the whole process. Thanks for being cool during the transition because it's not easy and honestly, thanks for just spending the time with us. We really appreciate it.

April: You know, I'm really grateful for CrossCountry, for everything. They wrap their arms around us and just gave us so much support. I can't believe how relatively seamless it was. You know, we didn't miss any closing dates. We continued to serve our clients and our community really well. Even though hair might have been on fire behind the scenes trying to figure out how to process something or whatnot. But, I mean, every single department has just been first class all the way, so it really made us confident that we made the right decision and now we're just producing. It feels like it's been six months, feels like we've always been here, and it's kind of amazing.

Hunter: Yeah, I love it. Well thank you. We appreciate you.

April: Thanks for having me.

Hunter: Absolutely.