While many lenders are cutting back, laying off and shrinking in volume, NFM Lending is in the midst of a momentum explosion. Find out what’s in the secret sauce as NFM TV Host Greg Sher sits down with company President Jan Ozga.

Full Transcript is Below:

– Welcome in to another edition of NFM TV. I’m your host Greg Sher, now joined by our president, Jan Ozga. So happy to have you with us Jan, NFM is going to the moon right now. There have been some really exciting developments already in 2019. Why don’t you share with everybody what they are and why you’re so bullish on the future of NFM.

– Well, you know, first of all I can tell you the forecast for the mortgage industry in 2019, in general is supposed to go slightly down. I believe somewhere around 1.6 trillion dollars, so you know, you’re relatively flat but still trending slightly downward. But at NFM it’s a different phenomenon happening. And we expect to almost double this year in 2019 with production. And part of the reason is some of the huge groups that we’ve brought on. We brought on a new division led by Darran Anthony and Mike Farrell in Main Street Home Loans. We also brought along Jay Delmont and Carl Delmont with Freedmont Lending. As well as, a lot of recruiting that went on to bolster our current existing core business. And this year will be the banner year for NFM. And we’ll tell you this year, we’ll probably do close to 2.7 billion dollars. So that’s a little bit over a billion dollars better than we were in 2018. And this didn’t happen overnight. This was years of trying to put together systems and processes and tools for sales to use at NFM. And we finally got it, in 2018. All the pieces came together and now we are literally attracting some of the very best talent across the United States.

– It’s so exciting and exciting to hear you talk about those acquisitions and the leaders at those two respective organizations and arms of NFM are just lights out, hands down, among the best in the industry.

– No question, incredible.

– What are some of those things that you just touched on, that you feel like has come together at the right time, some of the elements of what NFM offers that has made it such a good time to join.

– Well, first and foremost, I think it’s our commitment to the sales portion of this company. At NFM, we have an amazing operations, I mean I believe we have one of the best mortgage operations in the country. But often times, sales is a forgotten feature of operations and there tends to be a disconnect. At NFM, we really work on pulling both the culture of sales and the culture of operations together, so that we all understand that we are working as one unit. Sales can’t function without operations, operation can’t function without sales. But between the marketing between NFM TV, between doing premier video for realtor partners, these are things that have made massive changes in how an originator does business and how they get out there to the referral partners.

– Yeah, I just wanna touch, elaborate a little bit more on the service aspect, because that’s your background, so it’s new secret why NFM spends so much time focusing on the sales people. Because you’ve spent your whole life in service, first as a chef, culinary institute, running restaurants, then as an account representative for a big lender on the wholesale side. And then as the president of NFM now, for 13 plus years. So it’s like, embedded in you, the whole service thing. How much does that play in the culture of NFM?

– I would hope a lot. Service is everything to me. I’ve never looked at my position at this company as if I’m top of the food chain. I believe that quite honestly, I’m at the bottom and that I work for every single employee, doesn’t matter what level, what branch, what position. We’re all here to get a job done and that is to provide the best service possible to the referral partners and the borrowers. And my whole life has been about service to others. And if at the end of the day, that’s what I get remembered for, if nothing else, then I will have had an amazing career. So I always say this, and I hate to be redundant but it’s probably my favorite line ever and that is that at NFM, we believe so much in culture and for me any big business that loses it’s touch and loses it’s focus, probably lost culture first. I know that culture erodes strategy. So doesn’t matter what we think or where we’re going if our culture’s poor. And that all starts with service levels, it starts with building relationships, it starts with being honest, it starts with being able to take a hard look at who you are and what mistakes you’ve made and where you have to go to improve it.

– Wow, so powerful, so, so, powerful. Thank you so much for being with us.

– Thanks for having me, Greg.

– 2019, all the way up for NFM Lending. That’s our president Jan Ozga, I’m Greg Cher, your host of NFM TV. If you’d like to see more material, please go to nfmtv.com. We’ll see you again soon.