Full Transcript is below:
– [Announcer] Executive leadership Industry news makers Top producer insights This is NFM TV.
– It is always awesome to have David Silverman in the studio live and in person. Greg Sher from NFM TV with the CEO and Founder of this great company, NFM Lending.
– Great to see you, too, Greg.
– Thanks for stopping by.
– My pleasure.
– Coming off of three great months here at NFM, the industry is really on fire. Where to from here?
– It’s exciting. It’s taken us a long time to get into the top 50 retail originators in the country. I think with the momentum we have, and the team that we have right now, I see us entering the top 30 in 2020. That’s the outlook. It’s just a lot of fun right now, just great people joining this company, just fantastic people, some of the best originators in the country. Hopefully it will continue. We’ve just got to keep doing the right things.
– Question for you. I’m out there talking to people at many companies all the time. One of the biggest complaints and gripes among the companies that have gotten bigger is the loss of that family feel, which has been the staple of NFM. How do you make sure that as the company grows, you don’t lose that?
– I think that’s our number one goal, along with the growth, is to make sure it maintains that family feel. For us, it’s from less is more. As you know, you’re out there on the street. We’re not really, from a branch perspective, looking at smaller branches like some other companies do. We’re really focused on larger groups, less leaders. It’s not like we don’t love the million, two million dollar originator, but they generally go into another branch. The larger branches having fewer leaders helps us maintain that smaller feel.
– Let’s talk about rates for a minute.
– Yeah.
– Because they’re down, they’re low. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit right now. It’s not going to be like that forever. You got a crystal ball here you can look into?
– I think it’s going to be relatively low for the next 18 months. Beyond that, it’s just hard to tell. It’s just hard to say what’s going to happen after the election. For the next 18 months, it’s probably going to be pretty low.
– NFM’s in its 22nd year. That’s a long, long time in the business. You started out, you and your wife Sandy, with an idea. Now you’ve grown this thing to 600-plus employees. What keeps you going, what keeps you motivated?
– The people and the challenge. It’s so fun to work with this group of people. As you know, we’re celebrating people’s 5, 10, 15, 20-year anniversaries working with the company. So that makes it fun because it’s so familiar. Then of course, it’s always challenging. This thing is always moving, always changing. As we get bigger, we can afford more resources and do more fun things, like the studio.
– Uh-huh.
– And getting great talent, so that’s what’s fun.
– I know you’re excited about technology, too. Some things going on, and we don’t want to get too granular, but just kind of, 10,000 feet from where you feel NFM stacks up to the competition from a technology standpoint.
– It’s interesting. If you’d asked me this question two years ago, I’d be like, “Wow, we are so far behind.” And I think we’re right there, really. If it was just to push a button, we’re probably as close as anybody. Maybe not, Quicken’s got a little head start. They’ve spent a few million more than us. We’re there. And, we’ve got some really cool stuff that even they don’t have. From a technology standpoint, I would stack us up against anybody.
– Well, thanks for stopping by. Appreciate it very much.
– Good to be here.
– David Silverman, CEO and Founder of NFM Lending. I’m Greg Sher from NFM TV. If you want to see any of our material, we would love for you to check it out. We just launched a brand-new website. It’s www.nfmtv.com. There you have it. See you next time.