What does AI really mean for mortgage professionals? In this in-depth discussion, Joe Welu, CEO of Total Expert, breaks down the difference between true AI and automation hype. Learn how AI is optimizing customer engagement, streamlining operations, and driving efficiency in the lending industry. Don’t miss these insights from a fintech leader.
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00:00We are live from Las Vegas.
00:08I'm Diego Sanchez, president of HousingWire, and I'm joined today by Joe Whalew, CEO of
00:14Total Expert.
00:15Joe, it's so great to have you here today.
00:18Good to be with you, Diego.
00:19Thanks for having me.
00:21So before we dive in, could you just briefly introduce yourself and Total Expert?
00:26Sure.
00:28I started Total Expert, actually, in the basement of a real estate office in 2012, 2013.
00:36And we initially built some tools for loan officers and real estate agents, and that
00:42has evolved now into an enterprise platform.
00:45We do CRM, marketing automation, customer journey automation, intelligence, and a variety
00:50of things to power banks and lenders across the financial journey for home ownership.
00:56And how has the mission of the company evolved since you founded it in 2013?
01:02So there's parts of it that are the same, which is ultimately we came from a perspective
01:08of believing in the power of home ownership and how impactful that was, and we wanted
01:13to build capabilities that helped the mortgage industry connect with consumers, directly
01:21connect with consumers.
01:23And that's just really expanded to today, our mission as a company is deliver the perfect
01:29customer journey for all of the financial milestones, and that is heavily related to
01:37owning a home and being able to use that valuable asset for other important things in life.
01:43So it's really expanded to include that entire customer journey and all of the touch points.
01:49So I've been really impressed over the years with the number of your lender clients that
01:55unsolicited come to me and rave about your platform.
02:00What do you think is the special sauce behind that customer satisfaction that you're driving?
02:05One of our core values is customer obsession, and what that means ultimately is we believe
02:13fundamentally that we have to help our customers win and get the business outcomes that are
02:19important to them, and if we do that, we earn the right to build a company around it.
02:24And it's really as simple as that.
02:27And it's being really intentional about the culture, the organization, and the people
02:31we hire and fire to make sure they fundamentally believe that, and that is really the true
02:37north for us.
02:38And I imagine that bleeds into your sales strategy, like I imagine you're referral-based
02:43in terms of how you approach prospects.
02:45We are, yeah.
02:47And if you think about it, we have a partnership mentality, which so many people that sell
02:52technology to our industry, they want to deliver a solution to you, and then they want to go
02:58on to the next thing.
03:00And we just believe that it's really a long-term partnership.
03:05And our goal as an organization is ultimately to deliver value consistently over long periods
03:11of time.
03:12And as our lenders and banks that we work with evolve, we want to help them continue
03:16to achieve more.
03:18And it's really just that approach.
03:21I think both you and I believe that technology is not going to replace the LO.
03:28It's going to help good LOs get better.
03:31So can you talk about how Total Expert deploys technology to help your LO clients do better,
03:39win market share?
03:40So as of this moment, and historically, a big focus of ours is how do we give superpowers
03:47to loan officers, advisors that are helping customers?
03:52How do we help them identify the moments that matter to their customer?
03:56How do we help them educate, engage, and advise those consumers along the way?
04:03And so we've always really been focused on automating as much as we can to help them
04:08do what they're the best in the world at generally, which is helping customers, giving them high-quality
04:14advice on arguably the most important financial decision.
04:18And so we think about it from that perspective.
04:21As we go into 2025 and continue through 2025, we are taking the technology to an entirely
04:28another level.
04:29We have made some really substantial investments in AI, both if you think about the way we're
04:36investing in AI, there's really two distinctive buckets.
04:40One is predictive intelligence on being able to identify the moments that matter, which
04:46would lead to a need to buy, sell a home, refinance a home.
04:52And then the other bucket is agentic AI, AI agents.
04:58So we are working to bring...
05:00We're in pilot right now, in a very tight pilot group of human-like voice AI agents
05:07that have both voice and text, and the ability to really be a...
05:13Really think of it as a sales assistant to every loan officer that ultimately can do
05:20a lot of the things that they either forget to do, don't have time to do, or let fall
05:25through the cracks follow up, incubate a lead at the very up-funnel stages, set an appointment,
05:32all of those things.
05:33And we're putting that on top of our customer intelligence and our customer journey automation
05:38platform, and we're massively excited about this year.
05:42Yeah, that sounds really interesting and really like a force multiplier for your customers.
05:49We believe it is.
05:51And look, I think it's the changes in AI, we are really in the midst of the most profound
06:00technology shift in human history.
06:02I mean, if you look at what has happened with large language models and gen AI over this
06:08last couple of years, and you watch things moving so quickly, it's a very exciting time
06:14to be in technology and inside industries that are able to transform their businesses
06:19in ways that were just absolutely not possible a year or two years ago.
06:24Yeah.
06:25And it sounds to me like client support, client service is how you have been differentiating
06:31TolaXpert from other CRM platforms for the past 12 years, but maybe AI is another area
06:39where you start to differentiate from some of these other platforms.
06:41We absolutely believe so, and it's taking our true north, which is ultimately being
06:46customer obsessed and delivering value to our customers.
06:51But then it's how do we, like you said, force multiply and compound that value.
06:56And we feel like giving what legitimately feels like superpowers to these high quality
07:03individuals that help homeowners and borrowers everywhere, giving them these capabilities
07:10that are allowing them to do things that were simply not possible before, allowing them
07:15to help customers at a scale that was really never possible, with a lot more precision
07:24and just the ability to reimagine what is possible.
07:30So you're the CEO, you're steering the ship, it sounds like AI is a big priority.
07:36What are some of your other priorities as CEO for this coming year?
07:40So as an organization, we're very much focused on redoing and relaunching a new sales experience,
07:50a refreshed sales experience.
07:53Really the amount of leads and opportunities that we've been able to help our customers
07:57drive has really shown us there's a need for an upgraded sales experience.
08:05So we're investing heavily, we're in the middle of rolling that out in stages this year.
08:09That's a huge priority for us.
08:12We want to deliver the best solution in the market, bar none, hands down.
08:16And we're partnering very closely with our customers to hit those deliverables this year.
08:22And then as an organization, as a company, it's really just really leveling up how we
08:29do things as a business in terms of how we serve our customers, how we unlock value for
08:35them, how we partner with them.
08:36It's just raising the bar is massively important to us.
08:40Yeah.
08:41I'm interested in how you bring in client feedback and how that impacts what you decide
08:49to prioritize.
08:50Yeah.
08:51So that's a great question.
08:53And I would say there's a whole bunch of variety of ways.
08:56And transparently, we've done it wrong many times over the years, and we've learned sort
09:03of what not to do.
09:05And we've, early on, would take one customer's request, and we would end up going really
09:12deep in a particular area, but then neglecting other areas.
09:15And so what we've learned is that you ultimately have to partner closely with your customers
09:20across the board and identify the things that can deliver really substantial value, right?
09:27So we don't want just to make this a little bit better, 1% better here and there.
09:31We want to do some of that.
09:33But ultimately, we want to deliver really substantial incremental value, and we will
09:39prioritize functionality and capabilities based on the amount of value that can be unlocked
09:44for a customer.
09:45As an example, our customer intelligence suite, expanding that and allowing customers the
09:52ability to identify opportunities way up funnel delivers massive value to our customer base.
09:59And so that was easy to prioritize that.
10:02Well, Joe, this has been a really interesting conversation.
10:05It sounds like you have some really exciting priorities for this year.
10:08Thank you so much for joining me today.
10:09Yeah, very grateful to be here, Diego.