How Mortgage Brokers Can Get More Referrals, Refinances, and Repeat Business With Better Systems

Cezar Mansour (00:00)
But one of the things he says in there is you never really rise to the occasion. You fall back to your highest level of preparation. And so if you’re preparing your day, you’re preparing for your day, you’re not just going to magically become better. You have to really prepare for what you expect to have happen.

Michelle Kesil (01:46)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Cezar Mansour who is a mortgage broker, an author, and creator of The Savvy Broker. So excited to have you here today, Cezar.

Cezar Mansour (02:04)
Glad to be here. Looking forward to the chit chat with you all about today.

Michelle Kesil (02:07)
Great, let’s dive in. First off, for those not familiar with you and your work, can you share what your main focus is?

Cezar Mansour (02:14)
⁓ My main focus is today is being the founder of a software program for individual loan agents and mortgage brokers called Savvy Broker. I currently have a mortgage business, I’ve it since 2001, and that company is called Beach Lending. And it’s gone really well. I’ve got about a six or seven staff that actually run that and take care of that. So that’s been our main focus of business.

Michelle Kesil (02:41)
Awesome. And which markets do you operate in?

Cezar Mansour (02:44)
Mainly, well, the mortgage business is all in California only. The software business is all throughout the country.

Michelle Kesil (02:51)
Awesome. So what is the Savvy Broker?

Cezar Mansour (02:53)
Well, you know, back in the day when I first started in the business, my background has been automotive. And I was in the business for about 15 years doing R &D for Toyota Motor Corporation. And I started having kids, I was deciding what do do, do I really want to stay here? I’ve been traveling about 60 % of time and I really…

I not able to really hang out with my kids as much. And all the ladies in our family were in real estate. They were encouraging me to get into the mortgage business. So I got my broker’s license, eventually opened up my own shop, and then all the ladies that were in real estate retired.

And so I decided what do I do, what’s gonna work. And fortunately in the corporate world I learned a lot about ⁓ systems and procedures and my background’s always been numbers. And so I was really a big Excel guy. And with Excel, ⁓ every square is a calculator. So I would have clients’ names, phone numbers, everything else kind of organized there. And what I found that with Excel you could have everything kind of come into one spot in terms of having, explaining what

you

the day that they started the loan, the rate of the loan, the loan amount, and I could tell today’s date and I could know the current loan amount when I turned it on. But I couldn’t get it to bring in the current values, I couldn’t get it to get prepared against the market. And so what done creating Sam and Broker is really take away a lot of the guesswork, a lot of the legwork that takes. for example, if somebody says, you were to say, hey, Cezar , I’d like to get a refi. So I’d tell you, hey, Michelle sent me

recent mortgage statement. I take that look at the banks, look at the get so see what the rate is by time I put everything together and sent you something taking about 30 minutes. A savvy broker takes about eight clicks. So it’s most of what I found is most loan agents are sitting on a huge book of business. And yet they don’t they’re really kind of using chasing new leads rather than working through their current database. And so for example, what I found is someone puts in 405

new clients into an Excel spreadsheet, usually right away they see a transaction that’s available to them and they can work it. But it’s basically having this system of procedure that’s available.

Michelle Kesil (05:07)
Awesome. And is this like a subscription service? How does it work?

Cezar Mansour (06:00)
Well, it is a subscription service. The whole idea is basically behind it is to make it kind of level the playing field between the individual loan agents and brokers with the banks. for example, most clients, most loan agents, when the rates drop, you’re going to make a phone call to what I call the low-hanging fruit. The ones you know for sure, they can get a refinance.

so that you’re going to spend maybe three, four days, sometimes a week or two weeks calling these clients, you’re going to get those transactions in. But by the time you get to the middle hanging fruit, at that point, other banks have already called them.

and usually you already lost that trust. So if you lose four or five loans like that, that’s like anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000 in commissions. It’s really a big deal. And so what Savvy Broker does is it lists all your clients in one spot, all basically green, telling you who to call, and immediately you can call them who to call. You don’t have to do a lot of the legwork like I was talking about before.

So it really allows you to know who to call right now, send a quick PDF to them, whether they’re doing a refinance, a purchase, or sale of a property, and then move forward onto basically to work in your whole book of business. So instead of talking to three clients, you can talk to 20.

that’s the idea behind that. So really gone well. So basically, yes, subscription-based business, it’s not very expensive, it’s about $59 a month. The whole idea behind that is to not get rich off of someone’s $59, but to really help the industry.

Michelle Kesil (07:26)
Awesome. And what do you feel have been some of the main keys that have allowed your business to be able to run successfully?

Cezar Mansour (07:35)
You know, really what has been the biggest thing and what I’ve found is consistency, systems and procedures, and a numbers-based business. A lot of people probably read the book already, The Millionaire Real Estate Agent by Greg Keller. It’s great book. Basically, but it talks about the habits, the successful habits of agents to make a million dollars a year or more. And one of the sections in there to talk about is a 33-touch program.

And that touch program, say if you have 12 good clients and you’re touching them 33 times a year, you’re gonna get one transaction and one referral every year.

So if you want 10 a month, you need 1,440 good contacts that you’re touching 33 times a year. So if you’re sending out a newsletter once a month, if you’re sending out a report from a savvy broker once a month, that’s 24 touches already. So you just need nine more. It’s not as intrusive it sounds like. And you’ve got your happy birthdays, you’ve got your Merry Christmas, you’ve got your daylight savings, Valentine’s Day, that all comes in there. Your magnets are gonna stand out for the calendar or the baseball skates.

you’re going to hit that number pretty quickly. So if you have that in place and then you have a system in place where you have all your clients in one spot and you’re able to manage that, then you’re going to, that’s where success is really going to come in.

Like I was saying before we were talking, is I really try to make sure you can manage taking care of the stuff you can control. We cannot control the market. We can’t control the rates are going to go up or down, but you can be in charge of your marketing. You can be in charge of how you organize your database. And so that’s really important. So I basically started, like I was saying, with an Excel spreadsheet and then evolved into a software program that was able to help me with that.

Michelle Kesil (09:18)
Awesome. And so what is the book that you wrote? Can you share on that?

Cezar Mansour (09:22)
Sure, the book I wrote is called The Official Guide to Building a Filled Base Business. It talks a lot about what we were just talking about. What I had was a manual from my agents that were working for me. And I was at my friend’s wedding in Hawaii. And I was sitting back relaxing and I was like, know, if I had a couple stories, I have a book. And in the book, really, I talk about…

Socializing not a lot of people call it networking, but like to change the word is socialize. I socialize socialize socialize the idea is Go to that birthday party Join that stuff join that softball team or soccer team or whatever you’re into say hello to people shake those hands You don’t have to sell yourself per se to just become their friend and increase that database that you have and meet those people Get them into your system and then as you market to them that business is going to grow

And so the idea behind the official guide to building a flow-based business was just that, is go in and say hello, be in organized, what kind of thank you cards you just sent out, what kind of hellos, how do you stay motivated, all those types of things. So that’s what the book is about.

You can get that on Amazon easily. can go to my website, caesarmansure.com. can log in to sign up for the newsletter. You can opt out right away, but you’ll get an email with a link so you can read my book for free as well. So it’s a great thing.

Michelle Kesil (10:43)
Amazing. What is some of like the framework that you teach on them?

Cezar Mansour (11:21)
Basically the format that we do it mainly teaches is You know with Savvy Broker. I have something that you know like I was saying Most loan agents and real estate agents are sitting on a book a business that they’re really not marketing to and so what I found is that what I tell book tell brokers if you can Create your own spreadsheet or have one and you can put all your clients loans and interest rates and properties in there You know

it’ll help you basically stay organized. So I actually put together something called Savvy Broker Client Loan Tracker. And what it is is ⁓ a Excel spreadsheet that basically helps you get set up. If anybody wants one, can connect with me on LinkedIn or follow Savvy Broker on Instagram and just DM me Savvy Broker and I’ll send you a copy of that Excel spreadsheet that’ll really help you out as well as some training with that.

Michelle Kesil (12:17)
Awesome. What are you most focused on solving or scaling to next in your business?

Cezar Mansour (12:23)
You know, fortunately, like I was telling you, I’ve got a…

a good staff running the beach landing and the reason being is because of the systems and procedures that are in place. obviously people are out meeting and socializing with new people but running that book of business keeps the phone ringing, keeps the emails coming in, keeps people interested. On the mortgage, on the software side, we’re basically just continuing to let everybody know what Savvy Broker is and how it can help loan agents and how it improves their book of business. What I’ve found is that the aha moment in a sense

someone puts in the probably the fourth or fifth client into Savvy Booker, they’ll see a transaction immediately. So if they’re making 1 % off of a $300,000 loan, that’s $3,000 commission. If it’s a $500,000 loan, $5,000 commission. That’s gonna more than pay for Savvy Booker for years to come. The idea though is that once someone sees that, that, uh,

Savings and they see that it actually is helping them to stay focused It’s a huge deal so you wake up every morning knowing who to call or knowing who you don’t need to call and you can And that that’s that’s kind of in the biggest thing So it’s just basically just you know like everyone else just growing your business Staying on top of on top of your game You know you have that had that morning ritual you’re getting up in the morning And if you plant you’re looking through the plan that you did the night before You know most like I always like to say what I teach about it is that you

You know if you look at yourself as a corporate athlete and If you’re planning your day the night before and you show up to work at nine o’clock You’re so much further ahead than someone’s showing up at nine o’clock to plan their day So by the time you get your day started you already know what you’re doing. You know where you’re going You know the avenues to take

And those are the things that not only you teach, but practice in my business. And that’s why we’ve been in business since 2001. And it will be as successful as we are. That’s been the biggest thing. The hardest part really is getting organized. I mean, it’s work. It’s not, you like I always say, you can’t hire someone to do your own pushups. You can’t, know, if you’re hanging out during the day and you’re organizing your sock drawer, that’s not going to get you the business.

that you want to get. So having a real clear understanding of what you want to do and making a plan to do it and then executing it, that’s the hardest part. mean, giving someone an Excel spreadsheet for them to fill out is great. It took time to make that Excel spreadsheet, but it also takes time to put the clients in there. Once the clients are in there, then it’s easy. But getting the clients in there, taking the time to do that, whether you drink alcohol or not, two glasses of wine or two cups of coffee or

or whatever it is, three or four nights a week, that’s gonna get you organized to the point where then you can have more of a commanding control of your business. And that’s what they say, the corporate athlete works really harder than a regular athlete. An athlete, a sports athlete, they’re off a couple months a year. Corporate athlete is off four weeks a year, maybe, if they have good vacation plans going on. So the thing is, we’re working hard.

And you gotta make every minute count. And to do that is preparing to be successful. I think one of the best books I read was called Never Split the Difference, Negotiate As If Your Life Depends On It.

And it’s just written about how to negotiate.

But one of the things he says in there is you never really rise to the occasion. You fall back to your highest level of preparation. And so if you’re preparing your day, you’re preparing for your day, you’re not just going to magically become better. You have to really prepare for what you expect to have happen.

So that you have an idea that’s great, but then how are you going to implement it? What are you going to do? That’s where coaching, reaching out to people, reading books, using a program like Savvy Broker, and really

implementing the steps, that’s what’s gonna make you successful. I mean, can read a lot of books, but if you’re not applying it, if you’re not taking a few things and deciding that today’s the day that I’m gonna take care of it, that’s the issue that people.

I see people running into and that’s the difference between success with people and not in our business. You see people come in and they come in and out quickly and see some stay forever and they’re just very, very successful. And it’s usually the stick to it of ness, the systems, the procedures and the planning that makes it happen. It’s really not, it’s not a huge science. It’s just, it’s difficult. I mean, even setting up to do this podcast, Michelle, it took you time. He had to prepare and it’s very important and it’s a great thing.

Once you start to do it, the accomplishment and the feeling is huge.

Michelle Kesil (17:42)
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, is there anything that you’re most looking forward to or any opportunities that you have on the horizon?

Cezar Mansour (17:45)
Yeah, for sure.

You know, I’m, like I said, I’ve been in the business since 2001, so my biggest thing is really just what I’ve been enjoying the most now is the of the fruits of the labor, in a sense, and that we put in a lot of time, put in a lot of energy. It’s nice to be able to give back to people in the community, in the real estate community especially.

in terms of like personally and horizon, know, just a couple of vacations that are coming up. got, you know, just recently became a grandfather and looks like I’m gonna become another grandfather soon. So those things are huge for me. At the same time, what I’ve, again, like I said, is, you know, what I’ve found is that staying organized and staying on course, those are the things that kind of keep me looking towards the future. There isn’t some huge BHAG or big hairy audacious goal that I have more than growing this.

name and the brand of Savvy Broker and getting it out there to the people to let them know. You know, like I’ve always said is, you know, I wrote a business book. I got my real estate license. I got my,

my mortgage license. I created a software program. Those are great things, yet the thing is, is anybody using it? Is anybody reading that book? You you got a law degree, that’s awesome. Do you have any clients? Oh, you’re a doctor, do you have any patients? It always comes back to the marketing. It comes back to putting yourself, oh, you graduated college, that’s awesome. So when you get a job. And so the main piece behind all that is…

You have to push yourself forward to make sure that that’s gonna happen. There’s always gotta be some.

some goal, you had a goal to get your degree, you had a goal to get your license, you had a goal to start a software program. Now, how do you get it out there? Who do you talk to? Where do you get these things? And so those are the biggest things that I see. So it’s also very exciting for me because I know it works and at same time it’s getting an opportunity to talk to mortgage workers throughout the country. I’ve really learned a lot. One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that we’re all in the same boat. We really are. A lot of us are sitting on a book of business

we’re not mining, instead we’re trying to get new leads rather than looking at the previous leads we have and looking at getting referrals from those leads. So that’s been a big thing. So being able to talk to people and share that has been huge for me, honestly. It’s been really rewarding at same time.

Michelle Kesil (20:04)
Yeah, definitely. Well, before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect and stay updated with what you’re up to, where can people find you?

Cezar Mansour (20:16)
You can find me kind of all over the place. can actually just Google my name, CezarMansour.com. I’ll come up in a lot of areas. You can go ⁓ to Savvy, savvy-broker.com You can sign up for a demo there. Again, you can go to LinkedIn. Look me up on LinkedIn. You can connect with me through there as well as on Instagram. You can look up Savvy Broker on Instagram as well. And we can.

Like said, if you want to get a copy of that Savvy Booker Client Manager ⁓ Loan Tracking Sheet, just shoot me a DM and just say Savvy Booker in there and I’ll reach back out to you with ⁓ that Excel sheet as well as we can set up a time to talk individually as well.

Michelle Kesil (20:55)
Perfect. Well, appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Cezar Mansour (20:59)
Thank you, Michelle. I appreciate it. Looking forward to getting to work with you guys in future.

Michelle Kesil (21:02)
And for those tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Cezar who are building real businesses. We’ll see you on our next episode.