Bob Beran calls his experience working with the Ben Burkett Team of NFM Lending in Richmond, VA not only the best experience he’s ever had working with a mortgage lender, but the best experience he’s had working with anyone in the service industry, period. Hear about his incredible journey and what made Ben’s team so special in this edition of Home Run: Great Client Experiences.

Full Transcript is Below:

– [Greg] Welcome to Home Run: Great Client Experiences, a podcast by NFM TV. I’m your host, Greg Sher. We’re traveling down to the Richmond, Virginia area where we welcome in happy client Bob Beran. Bob, how are you today?

– [Bob] Hi, I’m fantastic. How are you, sir?

– [Greg] Amazing. Thank you so much for being with us. And Ben Burkett, he is a Branch Manager extraordinaire. Thanks for being with us. How are you?

– [Ben] I am doing great. Thank you.

– [Greg] Let’s get into it. So Ben, tell us when you first learned about Bob and his needs and how you managed to tackle them head on.

– [Ben] Yeah. Bob was referred to us by a realtor partner I work with here in Richmond and a good experience always starts with a conversation where you connect with people and Bob was one of those individuals where we we hit it off and I think he was looking for someone to provide good communication, kind of create a visual picture for him and lay out the steps in front of him. And I think he felt comfortable with what we had to share and it’s worked out really well.

– [Greg] Bob and the dominoes started to fall very quickly for you. Talk about the process of selling your home and the urgency in which you needed to grab a new one.

– [Bob] I was working with my real estate agent and we were thinking that the area that I was in it was going to sell relatively quickly. I had taken a bunch of time and put the house together, put it up, got it in good shape and we decided that we were going to have the first showings on Thursday. She called me Thursday at nine o’clock and she said the second person who saw the house was going to be making an offer. And I said, whoa. I haven’t even looked for my new house. And she’s like call Ben, you need to call him. Called Ben, called me back within five minutes. We ended up staying on the phone for about an hour. Totally connected. I felt totally comfortable, it was easy to talk to and I realized that at that point the lender that I had used for my mortgage the three previous times was actually the wrong one. I felt like that there was an immediate concern, Ben knowing that all of a sudden here it is Thursday, I’ve just sold my house and I need to get going here. And boom, we hit the ground at about mach seven speed. So it worked out well.

– [Greg] Bob, thanks for sharing that. Tell us why you had to move so fast. I understand that there were some COVID related reasons.

– [Bob] There was. The home went up for sale never thinking that I was going to sell it on the first day more or less the second scheduled appointment. People who bought my home had come back and said, hey we want to be in very, very soon. There was actually a COVID situation within their extended family. They came from the Western part of the state of Virginia and they wanted to get out quickly. So Ben and his team had to arrange and get all the things done probably within 26 days. You know, everything went well, everything went smooth.

– [Greg] What line of work are you in Bob?

– [Bob] I’m in sales. I am a sales manager for a tile company here in Richmond and I’m also the sales manager for the same tile company in Virginia Beach.

– [Greg] So you’re a tile expert, huh?

– [Bob] I am a customer service expert.

– [Greg] While you’re here, since this is a podcast pretty much related to home ownership, why don’t you drop a nugget or two on our audience about a quality of tile and why it’s important?

– [Bob] The thing about mosaic tile is we use first grade all hand-selected tiles. So if you’re going to compare my tile to the big box store or somebody else, I’m going to be more expensive because when you buy tile you want all the lines to match up. And my tile is all the same size because of the quality control we use. And we make sure that you have a great experience. Very similar to the experience I got using Ben’s company.

– [Greg] I should say that I have tile in my foyer that is cracked and I’ve only been in the house for a year. It’s a new build. So I’m not happy about it. I probably need to call you offline figure out what the heck is going on. Hey, Ben Burkett, let’s bring you back in here. What do you recall about the experience with Bob and how did the fact that he seems to be all over every detail help you to get to the finish line from beginning to end in roughly 25 days?

– [Ben] So you know, we have a lot of practice with helping people quickly. In year 2020 we were really tested on how quickly we could execute and coronavirus did have an impact not only with maybe people having family situations where they needed to move quickly because of someone being infected but also the amount of the number of homes being listed. And I know this is not just Richmond, but everywhere. The number of homes were down quite a bit and people had to really be prepared, ready to act. And it was just more of the same just even in a quicker timeframe than normal. So when we talked with Bob, he provided all that we needed, we told them what we needed. There was clear communication. Of course, the team at NFM executes well. And 26 days and that’s what it ended up being was not a problem at all.

– [Greg] Bob, tell us about the home. How are you enjoying it?

– [Bob] One to 10, probably close to infinity. It’s been so awesome. I moved out of a smaller home and it was roughly I moved out of about a 1500 square foot home in a great school district in Glen Allen and I was able to move out to Providence Forge. So I ended up being able to purchase a 2300 square foot home, with a two car garage, which I didn’t have a garage in my first one, and happened to be on the 11th hole of Royal New Camp. So it’s not a bad thing when you walk out your back door, you walk about 62 feet and you’re at the tee box.

– [Greg] Does that help your golf game?

– [Bob] Absolutely. Absolutely. I got to take Ben down somehow this spring. So I’ll keep practicing.

– [Greg] What do you think about that challenge Ben? It sounds like you’ve been called to the mat here. You up for it?

– [Ben] I think so. Needs to warm up a little bit, but I’ll be ready.

– [Greg] All right. Bob I understand you had some challenges with your HELOC and your past lender. Had it Ben help you overcome them?

– Ended up having a HELOC through the bank and for whatever reason we had gotten all the paperwork done, his team had told me all the things that I needed to have completed. But the one thing that we couldn’t do, we couldn’t get the right figure was for a HELOC and I figured me being the customer of the bank having two different bank accounts there, it’s just going to be a simple phone call, boom, done deal. And I’ll tell you, it was a nightmare. And one of Ben’s teammates stepped in. Said, I’ll handle it, ended up going to the bank’s headquarters in Ruther Glen, Virginia and probably resolved it in about 45 minutes. Because within an hour of speaking to somebody on his team, I had gotten a confirmation email from the bank with the complete details of the HELOC and the details on the note. So I’d like to tell you how they did it, I have no idea how they did it because I am one pushy sales manager. And I usually get what I want to get when I want to get it and the impossibility and the mountain I was facing trying to get this information I just figured it can’t be this hard. And no matter how I phrased it, whatever I did I just couldn’t get through to them. And next thing I know is 52 minutes later or thereabouts 53 minutes, somebody from Ben’s office calls and says, hey, you’ll have an email. Just, could you forward me the email and boom there it was all the information, done deal.

– [Greg] Am I reading this right? That you are on record as saying that you’ve never had a better experience buying anything in your lifetime than you had with Ben Burkett from NFM Lending. Is this true?

– [Bob] That is 100% correct. And I always prided my day in the workplace as being I want to be the best and I want to out shine everybody. And then I got to meet Ben and his team. And I literally have a new bar that I go to work every day and say, hey, if I can reach the Ben bar, I call it the Ben bar. And that’s the level of service and commitment that his people gave to me. What separated Ben and his firm and his team was not only do they follow up, but they follow through. And just when you think they follow through, they follow back and then they follow up again. So I would have to say that I’ve never had an experience whether it’s buying an automobile, buying a home, buying whatever. I have never had the level of service and attention to detail and anybody experience until I met Ben and his team.

– [Greg] We appreciate both of your time. Ben Burkett, superstar branch manager from NFM Lending in Richmond, Virginia and happy client, Bob Beran, he’s in the tile business. Why don’t you give your, give your website a plug.

– [Bob] Okay, well thank you. www.mosaictileco.com So mosaictileco.com.

– [Greg] I’ll go one step further and give your email address Bob. It’s B as in boy, B as in boy, bberan1221@gmail.com. And you can reach Ben Burkett for all of your housing needs at 833-4303. I’m Greg Sher from NFM and you’ve enjoyed another edition of Home Run: Great Client Experiences, a podcast by NFM TV. So long

– [Narrator] Home Run: Great Client Experiences, is a production of NFM TV and NFM Inc. NFM Inc. does business as NFM Lending, NMLS number #2893. Ben Burkett’s NMLS number is #269591. This podcast is for informational purposes only. NFM ending is not affiliated with any real estate companies. You are entitled to shop around for the best lender and or real estate company for you. The real estate agent is not a mortgage lender. Contact NFM Lending directly to learn more about their mortgage programs and your eligibility for such programs. The experiences of clients appearing on this podcast are individual experiences of those who have used our services. NFM Inc. does not provide incentives for testimonials or reviews. NFM Lending is not a credit repair company. You should consult with a credit repair company to determine what may be best for your individual needs. This is not a credit decision or commitment to lend. Eligibility is subject to completion of an application and verification of home ownership, occupancy, title, income, employment, credit, home value collateral and underwriting requirements. NFM Inc. is not affiliated with or an agent or division of a governmental agency or depository institution. Copyright 2021.