Lean in. It sounds simple. But for Terri Santiago-Parker, it changed everything. In this CCM Talks conversation, she shares how serving the Hispanic community, building a family-first team and choosing authenticity over comfort have defined nearly 30 years in the mortgage industry. When you stop holding back, there's no ceiling.

Hello, I am Hunter Marckwardt, and we have another CCM Talks today. I have the pleasure of interviewing a very dear friend of mine, Terri Santiago-Parker. How are you today?

TERRI: Thank you. I'm good, thank you.

HUNTER: Good. Great.

TERRI: Great.

HUNTER: So let's just start with, I mean, literally when I, when we came in here today, like, I didn't realize as long as I've known you. You have your husband and three sons working with you.

TERRI: Yeah.

HUNTER: Can you, can you tell us about that?

Well, first, I've been doing mortgages for a long time. November 7th will be 29 years. And I've been with my husband, Jay, for March it will be 35 years. And so it's such a big part of my life that I just needed his help. Honestly, you know, you're good at something, you're not good at other things. And, like, Jay is good at everything that I'm not. Honestly, that's why we've been together so long probably.

HUNTER: I love that.

So he joined us, I want to say I was about 15 years ago at this point. And then over time, Joe, who's our oldest son, who is actually our branch manager now, is a freaking loan ninja. He's doing loans, like, pretty much his whole life. Went to college, worked through college, came back. So now he's the loan officer/branch manager. And then Nick, who's our middle son, is our top processor. And so everybody has different personalities and roles and things like that. And so, Nick, Nick is crushing it.I don't know how to he remembers everything he remembers, but he's a beast.

And then Jack, who's 17, who just started with us this summer, is like a technology. I mean, these kids right know all the stuff. So it's very cool to …

HUNTER: Everyone gets along like, like holidays is, everything's cool?

TERRI: I feel bad for my daughter-in-law.

HUNTER: Okay.

TERRI: Because it's always, you know, work is our life.

HUNTER: Love it.

But it's a blessing to, like, see your kids every day.And you and I both know you make so many mistakes for so many years. And now you get to not only share that with your team, but your kids. And so you can share all these experiences with them and skip them all these like, failures and mistakes.

HUNTER: I love it.

TERRI: So it's very cool.

HUNTER: 2:04

So you, I mean, as far as roles, you run a division, you coach, branch manager, producer and I mean, I would say one of your pride and joy is the Latino family, right?

TERRI: Yes.

HUNTER: Tell us a little bit about that.

So I don't know if you know the story or not, but so obviously, when I first started as a loan officer, I did wholesale and I came into retail in 2008. And when I did, that's the first thing, like, you know, I hate to say that, you know, that's who I worked with, but that's what I was comfortable with. And so I found it to be easier. You know, you should start with what you think is easier, I would think.

And so I, you know, fast forward ten years. I hired a coach, I hired a coaching company. And that coach stated, or, you know, coached me to not work with Hispanics and not do Hispanic loans because they're, you know, tend to be more labor intensive and it is my second language. So it would take longer to do those loans, etc.

And I listened to, you know, coaches, which is unfortunate, right? Because, you have some that are great and you have others that aren't fit for you I feel like. And so anyway, I stopped, I listened, I stopped doing those loans and it just didn't feel good. It was something that I complained to my husband all the time. I would actually refer those loans being fluent Spanish. I would defer those loans to someone else. And so afterwards I left that coaching company and, I kind of made it my mission to help and educate buyers in different communities where I think it is underserved, honestly.

HUNTER: I love that.

TERRI: And so especially in the Hispanic community right now.

HUNTER: And where do you rank right now in doing loans for the Hispanic community?

TERRI: So I'm number one in the northeast.

HUNTER: I mean, that's a big deal.

I'm trying to take over the whole entire thing. I'm working really hard to do that. And the coolest part is I have 14 people on my team, including my three sons, and eight of them are fluent in Spanish. So I'm very proud of that.

HUNTER: I love that.

TERRI: I’m very proud of that.

HUNTER: Amazing. So one of the questions was representation. What does that mean?

So basically, well number one is, everyone's doing video and social media and things like that. A lot of, Hispanics, you know, at my age, they're you know, they're not first generation, and so their grandparents speak Spanish, their, you know, parents speak Spanish, but they don't necessarily speak Spanish fluently. And so they don't want to, you know, we oftentimes don't want to go, you know, into Instagram or lives and stuff and speak Spanish because it's a little bumpy. Right?

But I think that it's more authentic. And I'm trying to do everything I can to, you know, go out there and be a role model to say, you know, to show other loan officers like, this is what we should be doing as a community. And, so yeah, I'm focusing on doing that, even if it's a little uncomfortable sometimes. If that makes sense.

HUNTER: Are you okay getting uncomfortable?

TERRI: Yes. Now. I wasn't before. You get older, things change a lot.

HUNTER: You keep talking about your age. I want to ask, but I won't ask how old you are, so we'll just …

TERRI: It's a big milestone this year. I'll give that secret. So it's a big milestone. A big one, an old one.

HUNTER: Any hints?

TERRI: Yeah. Starts with a five and ends with an O.

HUNTER: Okay. Yeah. I'm with you. So you started your own coaching company?

TERRI: Yes.

HUNTER: Like, what was the why behind starting your own country company?

One, I have helped so many loan partners or people on, you know, people on experience let's say. Most of the team members I have, had zero experience for my whole career. And thankfully and luckily, I've been able to, you know, have them become a loan partner and then a processor and then a loan officer. And like Jennifer Group, for example, is one of these people. And now, you know, she has a branch in a region and she's a killer.

And, you know, I can go through the whole laundry list of that. And so my husband, I were driving to South Carolina, which, you know, is a big part of our business. And, I was on the phone the whole 12 hours and, you know, helping loan officers and helping other people and just explaining, like, the way they should be doing things or how maybe I think they should be doing it differently and things like that. And my husband was like, you know, if if they're not joining CrossCountry, maybe you're giving them too much information and hence where TMI came from. And he's like, you just, you know, maybe giving people too much if they don't want to join you, they should want to join you and then you help them succeed like the others that you have.

And so that's kind of where it stems from, is because naturally, I just wanted to continue to help people, you know, do better, do more business, grow their, you know, it's so fulfilling to see, like Angie, for example, is one of the Hispanic loan officers I have. And she worked at CVS and this girl worked, you know, all night unloading trucks, work the night shift by herself like this crazy stuff. And, you know, now she's been with us for almost seven years, and now she's able to buy a house and her husband has a brand new car. She has a brand new car, like all these wonderful things. They had a baby.

And so it just, it's kind of really fulfilling to see, you know, you just get it, like changing people's lives. It's like mind blowing to see it happen.

Well, I mean, my next question is like 25 years into this business, like, how do you stay motivated and excited? And I think you probably answered it, but I'm still going to ask the question.

One, I love that there's no ceiling, that you can just keep doing better and better, and everybody's into like the self-help books and like, you know, podcast and all this stuff. But really it really starts with just you and yourself. And so I think that this job is the best thing that you can do to kind of like continue to better yourself. And so, and then you know, you get all the rewards from that. So that's kind of nice.

HUNTER: So I was not the coach, I would like to believe I'm not the, I'm not the negative coach that you had, but I coached you ten, 12 years ago.

TERRI: Yeah.

HUNTER: So when we talked about, and at the time you did not have balance, right?

TERRI: No.

HUNTER: So if we talk about like your success and balance, how do you, like what would you say to that? Like how do you balance it now or do you balance it now?

So it's always difficult to balance, right? Like nobody has it all, you know, together, right? So we watch all these things. But you know, going back for a second just to give you like a quick reminder which, you know, right, is that I was doing like 15 to 20 loans a month. I had a monstrous IRS debt that I was hiding from. I had $90,000 in credit card debt, no investment properties, a humongous mortgage. I was working 80-90 hours a week. I was super emotional all over the place. I could keep going, right? Kind of like where I started, right? Started on like no college education, welfare, etc.

So I would look at like, you know, Josh and Shayla on the stage and seeing them like doing three, you know, making $3 million a year. And I was like, this is not real. This is like a cult I thought. And two, I was like, no one's really doing this stuff. And so fast forward, you know, now we're doing, you know, 40 loans a month. And you know, we have, you know, 20 investment properties, you know, no mortgages, two second homes, no IRS debt, no credit card debt, etc.

And so, you know, this business, having those feeling, allows you to, you know, improve yourself in so many ways. But it starts with, you know, not being emotional about business, having structure, learning, applying those things, having good role models and mentors, all that stuff.

HUNTER: I love it.

TERRI: My story’s kind of crazy.

It is. It's amazing. Right? I mean, I hope people like, appreciate, what I mean, like, I mean, having known you for as long as I have, it's like it is amazing. So what advice would you give? I mean, you know, it's like, because you're a woman, I'm supposed to say a woman, but I mean, like, what would you advice would you give anyone, like, from a transitioning standpoint of what where you were to where you are today if you were talking to women watching this? What advice would you give them on the transition of like breaking through the ceiling, all of a sudden you're you have a leadership role, you're, I mean, you're influencing a lot of people. What advice would you give them?

One of the things that I used to do wrong is I wouldn’t speak up for myself. I'd oftentimes be kind of flirty, kind of salesy, you know, I would laugh, and then I would go back to my husband or my house and I would be frustrated, like, oh, I should have said this, this and this. I should have said what my idea was. I should have spoke up for myself. And, you know, that is a little bit of being a woman, I think oftentimes and, being a business person. And so the advice that I would give would be to speak up, be yourself. Don't be afraid to be yourself.

Sometimes people are like, oh, Terri's like, you know, so vibrant and so much and she's crazy or whatever that, you know, they would say, but really, like, that's just myself. And, you know, thankfully a lot of people love me for it and some people don't, but that's okay. And so that's what I would say. I would say it's okay to be yourself. It's okay to be one spectrum or the other and speak up, because people like yourself that are way more successful than me will listen oftentimes and then you will further in your career.

Right on. And I don't necessarily agree that I'm more successful than you, but I'll take it on this interview. Just like winding down like as far as, like, what do you think our industry needs to be doing right now for Hispanic homebuyers in general that we're not doing today?

That was another question that I was like, yes, I want that question. And that is lean in, lean in. Sometimes things happen in our world that are scary not only to us, but to the community overall. And, you know, sometimes professionals are like, you know, I got to stay in this box and, you know, we know the rules. No religion, no politics, etc., right? But in this case, we're talking about families and community. And it's our responsibility to step up as professionals and lean in and help people and educate people.

So I am heavily involved in NAHREP because that is, you know, something that they believe in. I've made so many friends and established so many relationships through NAHREP, and the same thing with just community. Like I would say, I'm probably doing a speaking event almost weekly. We have one coming up for business owners for women that we're doing next week. It’s 150 business owners there that are renting their business like mixed use properties, for example. And so they don't know that it's possible. And I feel like it's our job to show them that it's possible.

HUNTER: I love it.

TERRI: I’m very excited about that.

Terri, it's a pleasure. I mean, you probably don't need to hear that I'm proud of you, but like, I'm seriously proud of everything you've done in your career. And it's an honor to spend this time with you. So thank you so much. And, yeah, super fun.

TERRI: Very cool. Thank you.

HUNTER: Thanks, Terri.