The Loan Officer of The Future With Dino Katsiametis

Michael Vandi: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the loan officer playbook podcast, the podcast where we talk about real insights and real strategies and loan origination today, we're talking to Dino Katsuyametsu, Dino is the CEO of Ethos Lending and truly one of the thought leaders in our industry. And I'm so excited to speak with him today.

Welcome Dino.

Dino Katsiametis: Thank you so much, Michael.

Michael Vandi: So Dino, let's, you know, get right up to it. What is ethos?

Dino Katsiametis: Yeah. E ethos is something that's taken 26 years to develop, which is how long I've been in the business. And it's, it's basically started from entering into the business to make money. And. Exiting with the sole purpose of helping as many people as I can, both on the consumer side where, you know, we're, we're setting up people, not just with new loans, but with, uh, an entrance into the new loan and exit out of that loan as well, right?

Where it's a little bit more of a complete financial picture, because there's, there's a, there's a lot of potential. Buying a home, as we all know, is, is so expensive and, and you can't just think of it as buying a car. There's a lot more to it, right? So there's the consumer facing and then there's the, the industry facing side, which is helping loan officers achieve the dream of being a very successful loan officer and being able to make a career out of it, um, in the way that I've done it in over the years.

And that's more through the, the relational piece of business, not the transactional piece.

Michael Vandi: You mentioned it's taken over 26 years to build. What are some of the lessons that you've learned along along the way?

Dino Katsiametis: I think it boils down to I, I changed the way I did business a certain way, which got me to a higher level of, of loan officer status.

But really when everything changed is when I decided that I was going to serve people. As opposed to do their loans, right? As opposed to make money off of them. And, uh, back when hashtags were popular, you know, my tag that I created was hashtag, who can we serve today? And, and I really wanted to live by that.

And if, and if that meant serving somebody, but not making a ton of money on them or even any money at all in some cases, but I was doing them right. Then that's, that's what I did. And I mean, I gotta tell you, just by deciding to serve people truly from the heart, um, the money came, it, it, the business exploded after that.

Michael Vandi: Um, speaking of serving people, I was looking at your Google reviews. Have you taken a look at your Google reviews recently?

Dino Katsiametis: I, I don't know how many there are, but I'm proud to say that there's not any, there's nothing less than a five star.

Michael Vandi: Yes, 178 reviews, five stars. So for 178 people to consistently and like consecutively say this is the best service that they've ever received, I think, That speaks to a lot about how you serve people and I just wanted to ask like what's your secret sauce?

Dino Katsiametis: I mean, I think it's exactly what I just said earlier, right? We we are truly serving people, but there's so much that goes into that It's it's not Just doing a good job, right? To me, doing a good job is something that everybody should do. If you're doing whatever it is you do, right, you should do a good job.

At minimum, you should have a five star review from everybody that you do alone for. If you can't get a five star review, review, then, then you're not doing, you're not doing it the right way. And, and I only wish you That there could be more stars in this algorithm, right? Because that's, that's the, to me, that's the average, even though that's the highest one, that's the average it's, what are you doing to surpass all expectations?

And, and I think what it boils down to is there's just a couple of things, right? You got to do what you say you're going to do. Um, you got to call people or communicate with them before they have the need to try and communicate with you. So, If they have to, if a client has to call you to ask about how the loan's doing or, you know, have we locked or when loan docs are coming out, you're doing something wrong.

All of that should be done in advance. And, and the secret sauce really is creating systems. And And that took me a long time to figure out, you know, hiring some people to be able to take some off my plate, stuff like that, that, that made a big difference. But then you realize that without systems, there's, you know, there's no, no, no ability to actually scale and no ability, you know, let's, let's take it back to like McDonald's, for example, um, or Chick fil a.

I mean, they, they have a system and it's always the same. And, and that's what I strive to do is I strive to, to make not just always the same, to also tailor it a little bit because we've always been more of a boutique firm and, and even when we're not, we want the client to feel like it is right. So it's consistency with systems, otherwise there's no ability to, to scale.

Michael Vandi: Speaking of scaling systems. So one thing I want to give you credit for is I was looking at one of your interviews and then for every loan that you do. You create like a personalized video and you have this personalized like spreadsheet like looking at like cost analysis. And do you still do that today?

Dino Katsiametis: I mean, I, I don't anymore, but, but yes, um, you know, we, we don't just have one. We, we have several videos that, that go out, um, throughout the whole transaction. We are really big into, uh, gifting, uh, you know, we call it our always present program. And quite honestly, I would say the majority of real estate agents or, um, mortgage loan officers will go ahead and splurge and buy a little gift at the very end when it's funded.

And we are completely the opposite. Um, we have a before, during, and after, um, there's two gifts that go out before they even buy a home. There's three gifts that go out during the time they have the home under contract. And then there's six gifts, actually seven, uh, that go out, uh, for up to one year after we fund the loan.

And then depending on the client and, and a few other, you know, things that we have in place, a client will be a client for life. And what does that mean? I mean, you know, they get a, they get a gift every three months.

Michael Vandi: Right. I mean, like you saying that I'm, I'm sold already. Now I know who to, who to reach out to when I, when I need a house for all the, all the gifts that I'm going to be receiving in total.

It's like over 10, um, no, 10. Yeah. You know,

Dino Katsiametis: you know what it, you know what the thing is, is here's what happened. I, I found so many clients that were stressed out. During the process of buying a home and then I was like, Oh, geez, this, this is no good. Right? Somebody buying a house. They should be celebrating.

They should be excited. It's the, it's a huge milestone in their life. Right? And yet they're all stressed out. So I was like, well, shoot, I have to do a better job to make sure. that, you know, that doesn't happen. And I did. I did a much better job, right? I created the systems. I put all the videos in place. I communicated.

Um, we funded, we were ready to fund early every time, all of the good stuff, but yet they were still stressed out. And, and it dawned on me that They're being told by literally everybody that buying a house is one of the most stressful things in a, in a life event, um, throughout somebody's life. It's, it's like ridiculous to me, but that's exactly what was happening.

So they walk into the entire process being stressed out because they're being told they need to. And, and my entire, um, process started this new thing of giving them permission. to celebrate instead of, you know, being stressed. So what, what my thought process was, let's give them permission to celebrate.

Let's do a great job and, and let's also celebrate it with them and for them, right? Let's kick off the celebration. And, and what happened is, is it overcame all of the stresses of buying a house. And then that's the one thing we hear all the time. That was so easy. And you guys were so great, right? Thank you.

Michael Vandi: And it's not, it's not hard to just feel for your customers and buy, buy them a gift. It's not like you have to do something like really amazing and it doesn't have to be like a thousand dollars worth of gifts. Something as small as that can like, you know, institute some joy into someone and then just have them be a customer for life.

Dino Katsiametis: I'll tell you, I had an event one time that taught me a lot and I did all of these small gifts that really weren't even expensive at all, but they were timely. They were thoughtful. Sometimes they were funny and a transaction ended. And the realtor went and got a 500 gift card from Home Depot and brought it over as a gift.

And quite honestly, that was more money than I spent throughout the whole process. Although, even though we weren't finished yet, it was a year long campaign and it was still less money than what this realtor did. But this realtor, realtor that brought over the gift card, the fact of the matter is a gift card is very, Not personal, right?

There's no thought that goes into that at all. And what was said is the, the client turned to me and said, I wonder how much money he made off of me. Right. And, and it was like, there you go. It's not about how much you spend because he was, he was actually in a sense offended because it's like, I think he just made like 25, 000 off of me.

And, you know, I only got a five, I only got a $500 gift card. I mean, shoot, he got paid for his services and, and now you're upset because you only got a 500 gift card. But that wouldn't have happened if he bought a, a cheaper, more thoughtful gift or the same price, but extremely thoughtful. What a difference that makes

Michael Vandi: that, that I think happens over and over again.

letting people feel like they're not being used. I think that's one of the things in this, in this market that, that are broken. And you and I were talking, um, a while back about how the process of mortgage lending and the market as a whole, you, you were mentioning about how it's broken, why do you think that's the case?

What are some of the things that you think are broken? And then if so, like, what are some of the things that we could do to fix it?

Dino Katsiametis: Yeah. Um, I think, I think what's happening is that. There's been a lot of changes, um, over the last several years, you know, in, in the old days, a company would start up. Let's just take like a car company, an auto company like Ford, right?

They innovate a few cars. Um, they really, they've been around for a very long time. Is it possible that an electric car company like Tesla can come along and change everything? Well, for the longest time, the answer was no. And they could just keep doing what they wanted to do. Technology is bringing in a whole new way of doing business.

Microsoft And if there's no, uh, if there's no adapting to it, there's death in the, on the horizon, right? And Ford had to adapt in real estate. We've seen companies like EXP and real come out with this direct revenue share model. And they exploded. They just exploded. And if you think through that a little bit, you know, these are realtors that are going out there.

They're self employed ultimately. I mean, they're going out there. They're spending their own money to get business. They're getting their own clients. They're running their own database. They're, they're, they're running their own business. They're just doing it under a platform. And this real estate company was taking a bunch of money.

Well, it didn't take long for somebody to come along. And change all of that, right? And just like that, these real estate companies are struggling. They have these big offices that nobody shows up to. They're not prepared to run a virtual company. And when nobody shows up, they got no culture anymore. Um, they, they're still trying to stick to the fact that, you know, Hey, we're the broker, we're taking on all this liability.

So, you know, you owe us a certain amount of money off of all of these loans that close. Well, shoot, that's changed. EXP and Real have proven that on the real estate side. Now, on the mortgage side, um, you know, we're quite slow. Financial institutions are quite slow to make changes, but it's going to be changing.

Now, a loan depot or a rocket or something like that, okay, they provide all the leads, right? A loan officer there shows up, phone rings, right? They don't have to do anything. That's a little bit different. I'm not like an ethos lending, right? I'm not targeting those kinds of loan officers. I'm targeting the self gen loan officers, the ones that truly are independent.

They have, they're running their own business, right? So, What we've created is a revenue share model that's similar to like an exp in a real where a loan officer comes and plugs in, but they run their own business, right? We're going to, however, though, provide them with all sorts of technology because the individual loan officer just can't, you know, Create this kind of stuff or even afford to create this kind of stuff, right?

So I believe that if we can provide that for them, train them on how to use it and then give them all the tools necessary, even an individual loan officer can turn into a mega producer, uh, more of an advisor and somebody that can flourish into the new era of how loans are being done. There's a whole new era coming before.

I thought, I thought I was like King, King stud for being able to close the loan in 15 days. And now it's, it's, you know, 15 days is going to start becoming the norm because the AI is doing that. I mean, you're a perfect example of how you're helping loan officers be more productive in less time. Right. So what we're thinking is have all of these AI tools.

But use them properly, right? Because an individual loan officer usually doesn't know how to do all that. So we'll provide the training for that. We'll provide the platform. We're going through all the, you know, the, the testing of all of it. And, and then we provide it for the loan officer. We provide a revenue share model for the loan officers where they make the bulk of the money, not the broker.

And now they're. Truly independent, but under our platform, which I think is somewhat necessary in today's changing climate to actually be under a platform if you want to truly be successful. So So with that said, a loan officer at our company is no longer going to be called a loan officer. They're going to be mortgage advisor, because ultimately we don't want a transactional loan officer here.

We want somebody that can take a client and listen to them and know what their needs are. And. put together a plan that best suits what their needs are. And, you know, I, in fact, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use just cause I love how he says it. Uh, Ryan Grant from Neo Home Loans, always says, you know, we're not just trying to put loan officer, uh, we're not just trying to put people into loans.

We're also trying to take them out of loans. And, and that means we're going to look at it in a 15, 20 or 30 year, you know, mindset. Because just putting them into debt and then leaving them isn't really doing what's best for the clients. So if we can look at it from a perspective of how are we going to get these people out of this loan one day, right, and put a game plan together for them and work with them.

As things change, I mean, what it is today is different than when you get married and then when you have kids and then who knows what happens in life, right? I mean, there could be all sorts of. ups or downs. And we got to be there to help them through this because quite honestly, you know, we are managing, we should be managing at least the, the largest asset that anybody has in their portfolio.

And, and the common mistake is that it's just a portfolio. It's not, we, we have, I, I, in my belief, we have more liability because Not only are we managing something in their portfolio, but we're, we're managing their home, which is way bigger than, than any asset from a financial perspective, right? It's, it's a home where your family is.

It's where generational memories are made. It's where love and laughter come alive. It's, it's really special when you start thinking about it like that.

Michael Vandi: It's, it's a very emotional job. It's something that like really hard to be put on one person. Like you, you, you mentioned it clearly. Most people have like 45 percent of their portfolios in the equity of their home.

And to just put that in the hands of, let's say, a loan officer, you're not only managing like, you know, one, like you close like 25, 30, 40, 50, 100 loans a month. It's like, you know, a lot of people's, I would say, American dream. It's like purchasing their home and then having a loan officer be the conduit to that.

So there's like no room for, for error on, on a large scale. One of the things you mentioned was having these huge offices where people come in or don't come in at all, which created sort of like what I think is a talent retainment problem in the industry. And what you're doing with like a revenue share model, having like the loan officers be partners, in a sense, do you think that's going to help retain more talent?

Not only in your industry, but do you think that should be the model for the entire industry?

Dino Katsiametis: I think in a self gen world where the loan officer doesn't get paid, Unless he closes a deal, then I think there's, that's a higher level loan officer that you should absolutely think of as a partner. If you are providing a bunch of leads that you expect guys to be there from, you know, nine to five to start calling or whatever the hours are you start, you know, that's a whole different model.

And there's no reason for an owner To spend all this money on leads, take all the liability, take all the obligation and, and then make somebody a partner when all they're doing is coming in and making calls, right? But if, if one of our mortgage advisors comes in and he's bringing a client with him and he's, you know, he's servicing them for 30 years, then that's a whole different story.

That's, that's a guy that I don't mind partnering with. And that's why we're creating the revenue share model for just for guys like that. The other thing we're doing that, that kind of goes hand in hand with it. I'm not even sure if I told you about it, but, um, we're creating something and it's not live yet.

It's definitely going to be in, in, uh, probably Q1 of next year. Um, But it's a behemoth project. And, you know, a mortgage advisor has an AUM, right? Assets under management insurance advisor has this, this premium that keeps building every, every year. And the more it builds, they're building an asset and a loan officer, a mortgage advisor.

All they do is close loans and then it's done. If they ever want to retire, they have to walk away. Or try and have some sort of a backdoor deal with somebody to sell their book of business, but there's no such thing as a book of business in our industry, right? Cause a true book of business is, is an asset that you can sell it in the mortgage industry that doesn't exist.

But what we're doing is we're creating it. Now, financial planner mass manages assets. We're managing debt. So we're trademarking the MUM, M U M, and the MUM stands for Mortgages Under Management. And we are putting together the, the AI algorithm that is creating debt. and dollarizing this book of business so that a mortgage advisor that works at Ethos Lending not only is closing loans and making money, not only is part of the revenue share model, but with every loan that they close, They're building an asset that is worth more and more and more with every single loan that you close.

Now there's going to be some caveats to it, right? You, you can't just, this is my favorite. You can't go around and pitch yourself as the You know, the, the Joe Smith, um, team, right? Joe Smith team, Joe Smith team. And you're successful. You do a ton of loans. Everything's great. But what do you think your exit strategy is one day with the Joe Smith team, when Joe Smith isn't there?

It's there is none, there is no exit strategy. So the most you can do is bring on some sort of a junior and, and then at some point, um, try and figure out a way to. Let the new junior take over and pretend like Joe Smith is still looking at the loans and doing stuff, right? But, but there's no real exit, but if it's a regular name, right?

Team name, then you can have an exit, right? So our, our way of thinking about it is somebody comes to Ethos Lending. They do loans the Ethos way, which is everything I just explained, right? Which is being a true mortgage advisor, you're servicing your clients. And you're serving them. And, and if you do it that way, then your mom, right?

Imagine logging into your dashboard. The very first thing you see is mom, you just funded a 700, 000 loan. Now you just funded a four. Now you're at 1. 1 million. It just keeps building and building every, every month. It drops just a little because of amortization, but every time you close the loan, it keeps going up.

And then. Yeah. You achieve all of these milestones, such as doing like annual reviews, just such a simple part of being a good mortgage advisor. And yet I would probably say that 99 percent of of mortgage advisors, probably I'm going to call them loan officers, don't ever do annual reviews. It's silly. So how could you expect to stay in touch with your client or get referrals from a client when you don't even do that?

All right. So if you do all of these things, then we're going to say that your book of business is worth X. And if the day comes and you want to retire, You put your book of business up for sale to all the loan officers at Ethos. As a company, we're going to help by providing financing for them and put together terms so there could be a buyout.

Right. And a transition, because it's important, but if everything's being done one way, right, with everybody, then the transition shouldn't be as hard. And, and then just like that, and if nobody wants to buy it, then as a company, we will agree to buy it. Right. Cause we're going to stand by what we're, our belief system is now.

What's really great is that that's if you want to retire, but let's just say the unfortunate it happens. And you get hit by a bus. Well, what a shame being married to a loan officer, just like that. It's over.

Michael Vandi: Yeah.

Dino Katsiametis: Right. I mean, unless you're financially savvy and you've got some retirement vehicles going, you've got some different things going and you've invested money.

You know, it's just over just like that. So how sweet would it be to have your, you know, your beneficiaries, whether it's a spouse or kids to be able to cash in on all your hard work over the years because of the company. that believes in, you know, in people.

Michael Vandi: Exactly. It's like you have compassion, not only for clients, but compassion for lone officers as well.

Compassion for the people who work for you. It's like letting them not only build wealth for other people, but build wealth for themselves. And the mom model that you just mentioned, it's something I've never really heard before. It's industry changing.

Dino Katsiametis: Um, it doesn't exist, but the reality is, I don't want, I don't want to leave behind an industry that looked like it did when I first got into it.

I can tell you already, it's drastically better than it was prior to 2008. But there's still a long ways to go before it's at that level of, let's call it financial plan or attorney CPA, right? Um, that's the higher level that I want the whole industry to rise to.

Michael Vandi: I, uh, I spend a lot of time on r slash loan originators and reddit, and a lot of the conversations is that some new LO just got a job at some, you know, mortgage lending company.

And they're like asking, you know, how many basis points should be my compensation? Just two days ago, someone was saying, Oh, I got offered like 70 basis points. And someone was saying, well, what I got in the industry was 125 basis points. Um, 70 is too low. And like thinking like very narrow minded, you know, like thinking very long term, like you've mentioned with the mom model.

And I think it's going to take a lot of visionary convincing to convince these people or just get new people in the business. You know, a lot of people left the business. We're totally

Dino Katsiametis: fine with that. New people are just fine.

Michael Vandi: I agree. I agree.

Dino Katsiametis: You know, I got to say to you just, um, um, just maybe a little shameless plug too.

So I don't know when this podcast is going to come out, but my new podcast, the way is, is coming out here in a few days. And I've, I've interviewed some of the most successful people in the mortgage industry. And, and I think what you'll find, I encourage everybody to go listen to it because what you'll find is the commonalities behind the successful Mortgage advisors and, and, you know, all the milestones they had to achieve to get to where they're at right now.

It's really interesting when you see, you know, what they say now, right? Like some of the questions, like, what would you do different? And, you know, you'll find that what I said earlier, like serving people, it's, it's really more of that. In fact, uh, Rick Mount, um, great guy. And, you know, one of the questions was when he first got in, right?

Like I was told by a friend and he said, you know, I thought I could make a lot of money. It was all about the money. If you ask him now, it's all about serving people. Right. So I get it. We all kind of started with one thing in mind, but Hopefully we've grown as human beings and we're beyond just that.

Hopefully we're, we're trying to actually serve people and do the right thing. Cause there's, there's a much bigger picture here

Michael Vandi: for recruiting. I want to take a conversation a little bit towards recruiting. I know like, as you're doing this, you're doing a whole lot of recruiting, um, to get new people.

What are some of the initial thinks you're looking at for your mortgage advisors to have? Before you say you give them additional training, what are some of the things that you're looking for in your market advisors?

Dino Katsiametis: Yeah, I think if they embody some of our core values, then the rest will, will come together if they have the desire to having somebody that is a good salesman or just a big producer, but doesn't have the same core values, then That's, that's not the person we're looking for.

We'd rather take somebody that's totally new to the industry that we're not going to make any money off of for a very long time. But is teachable and willing to do business this way and ultimately embrace these, these beliefs that we have to serve people.

Michael Vandi: And if you envision five years from now, what would the lone officer

Dino Katsiametis: of the future be like?

I mean, just, just take a little bit of everything I've said here, right? It's a, it's a higher end. person that takes time to speak with their clients, no matter, no matter what AI is going to do. I would hope that the loan officer of the future is willing to still take 30 minutes to have a one on one conversation with somebody.

So that they can hear what their wants, needs and fears are so that they can learn how to personally structure something that will take all that stress off of them, you know, from buying a house or refinancing or what it might be, right? Maybe it's maybe somebody's already got a house. Maybe they're already in good financial shape, but they're missing the boat on.

not having an investment property, right? Or, I mean, I, I can't tell you how many people, how many clients I've had that, you know, bought a, an investment property near a school that, you know, they, they kind of already predetermined their kid was going to go to. And turned it into a perfect investment vehicle and a generational wealth passing of, of property to their child afterwards.

You, you mentioned. To answer your question, right? There's, I believe the loan officer of the future will be more of an advisor, will not let AI completely take over the process. Yes. Give you an example, a personal, just, just personal, and I know a lot of good loan officers do this, but I, and I'm not doing loans really anymore, but when I did, I refused to send the link to a client and say, fill this out.

And then when we're done, um, upload whatever documents it asks for. And, and then we'll talk. I was like, that is so impersonal. First, let's have a conversation. Then we will send you a list of everything we need. But the most important thing that happens there is I've connected with somebody and I've, I know what their fears are and I know how to address them.

And more importantly, how to address, how to avoid them so that they don't have to have that experience, you know, in the future, um, of doing this one simple transaction, you know, and, and I got to realize that it's a simple transaction to us because we do it all the time, but to them, it's a really big deal.

So. AI is a tool to help us be more efficient. AI is a tool to help us be faster. And I think it's really important. AI is a tool to help us regain some of our time to ourselves, whether it's to be with family or Or, you know, to, to do something that's more passionate to you, whether it's, you know, going mountain bike riding, surfing, doing yoga, whatever your deal is, right?

If you can get a few extra hours out of your day to have a little bit more of a well balanced life, then, you know, I think we won. And that's our goal here is to, to offer that to the loan officers and, and then to continue down that line, just cause that's a big question. The loan officer of the future is creating an asset with every loan that he funds and he's treating it like a real business and the loan officer of the future, at least at ethos, they're going to start participating in all of these other verticals.

That we make other people rich off of. So for example, insurance, I don't see any reason why a loan officer of the future can't own their own insurance company, which that's another vertical that we're going to create for loan officers. Then we're going to have the, the ethos capital fund, which is simply hard money lending, right?

Trust deed investments. Don't see any reason why they can't be investing in the one thing that's actually making them money as well. And that's, you know, real estate. I mean, my goodness, look at all the, look at how much money we make the banks. We make the banks all the money. Why? Because they're the house house always wins.

So how about being the house? Right. And, and that's one of the other pieces. So loan officer, the future is going to be invested in all of the verticals that come along with getting a.

Michael Vandi: Um, so if I am, let's say the CEO of Rocket Mortgage and I hear this visionary speech from Dino and I'm like, well, yeah, or like Lone Depot, I say, yeah, well, I'm going to implement it in my own company.

I'm going to change everything. Um, and then just do exactly what Dino said. You think there is room for boutique lenders to grow and compete with folks like Rocket Mortgage? Why, why would Rocket Mortgage do something like this?

Dino Katsiametis: I love that question and I've, I've had this answer a million times over and, and here's the, the simple answer.

First of all, I can't compete with them. They are way too big. They have way too much money and they're, they're too good. I mean, as an individual, if I get a call that comes in, I'm in the bathroom. Did I lose that? Maybe, right? Especially if you're doing lead gen type. However, at Rocket or Loan Depot, man, they never miss a call.

Doesn't matter if it's Christmas, right? Doesn't matter if it's New Year's Eve at 1159, somebody's answering no matter what. But here's the difference. Those guys have to have this much of all the mortgage origination in the United States just to break even. As an individual, We have to have this much of all the loans in just our county and we can be very wealthy.

And the reason we can't compete with them is because they're, they're basically operating on a, on a massive scale, right? You know, in a whole different light, but they're transactional. They can't compete with me or anybody that wants to do business like this because we're relationship based and their loan officers don't even know how to care or serve the clients.

It's just not in the DNA. It's not in their DNA. It's in our DNA. It's, it's the way we do business. And it's not just me. It's there's, I know a ton of guys like me, but what we're trying to do now is, is create it. So it's not just an individual loan officer hustling the way they've hustled the way I've hustled for so many years, right?

Where we're trying to do is we basically, we've taken everything I've done over the years to be successful at origination. And we're systematizing all of it and opening it up In chunks so that the loan officer can just plug into it without having to work 12 hours a day like I did, right? There's a new way of life.

And I'm the first person to say that I failed at a lot of things outside of mortgage because I worked, I was working, I was successful here, but I was a failure here. So let's balance that out a little bit because to be a true success, it's not just how much money you make. It's not just how many loans you close.

It's about your family. It's about how healthy you are. You know, it's about your friendships. It's about so much more.

Michael Vandi: You know, I must say, I talk to a lot of thought leaders in the industry and I've come to not like the word thought leaders. It sounds very theoretical. I would prefer something like action leaders and I think you're one of the folks who are not only thought leaders, but also putting that thought into action, becoming action leaders in the industry.

And if people want to reach out to you. What would be the best way for them to reach out?

Dino Katsiametis: Any of the social media channels? Um, you know, Dino cuts, you met these, you type in Dino and then Katie. It's not very many of us. I'm sure it'll pop up. Uh, but also join. ethoslending. com ethoslending. com is our consumer site.

But if, if you're a loan officer, want to be a mortgage advisor, uh, and kind of check out all the stuff we have in place here. Then join. ethoslending. com. And I think all the social media channels, my personal is my name. The company one is, is join.

Michael Vandi: Amazing. Thank you so much, Dino. I am really excited and wish you the best of luck and I'll be following off on all the things Ethos Lending is doing, and I can't wait to see where you'll take this new model of yours in the next two to five years.

And even beyond, thank you so much for coming on.

Dino Katsiametis: Thank you, Michael. Really appreciate it and good luck on your venture. I'm super excited about everything you're doing. And the way you're going about it. So good luck with that. Congrats.

Michael Vandi: Well, that's it folks. This has been an other episode of the lone officer playbook podcast.

Subscribe for more episodes, just like this, and I'll see you in the next one.