How to Sell Tech to an Industry That Hates Change | Dewayne Starling (nCino)

Carter (00:01.326)
Hey Dewayne, give the people a quick intro. Who are you? What do do now?

Dewayne Starling (00:05.34)
Yep, Dewayne Starlin. I'm an enterprise account manager with Encino.

Long time mortgage banker got in the mortgage business back in the early 90s was a LO for a dozen or so years. And I went to the wholesale correspondent side with AB and Amro Interfirst. And then I came over to the technology side 10 or 11 years ago, sold in Compass for a few years, quite a few years. And then I came over here on the account management side with Encino, which we have the industry leading point of sale.

system in the industry. So I cover 35 or 40 of the top independent mortgage banking customers for Encino.

Carter (00:53.464)
Okay, cool. And that's actually what I was gonna ask you, but maybe you answered it already. Because I saw your title was strategic relationship manager. That's mainly a lot of account management, essentially. Okay.

Dewayne Starling (01:00.348)
Yeah. Yep. That's correct. That's correct. So what I do is I manage the relationship, make sure they're happy.

make sure nothing's broken. Obviously we have CSMs, customer success managers that kind of handle the day to day with them. you know, anything that needs to, you know, the renewals, that type of thing. But you know, we have really three products, if you will. We have the point of sale, we have eClose, and then we have incentive compensation, which is a compensation product. And then we have obviously our AI products that we're rolling out now as well. So in that they don't need, that they don't have,

you know we can add those. I don't ever like to think of it as selling so you know maybe they already have maybe have a Snapdocs or some other products that they you know maybe that you know our eClose product doesn't fit with them now but if it does work that they can add that in and you know bundled it it can be a better deal for them then you know it works to maybe add it and it's you know works out in the long run to be a better deal overall for them financially.

Carter (02:05.294)
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And you were a long time mortgage banker before moving to tech. What do you pure, I'm sure you have guys coming in that don't have a lot of mortgage background or maybe not. Like what do pure tech sellers get wrong when they're trying to sell to lenders?

Dewayne Starling (02:11.099)
Yep.

Dewayne Starling (02:19.772)
you

You know, and even looking back at it and, you know, I brought up Jeff Benjamin earlier and I think he would agree to this. And when I worked at AB and AMRO, AB and AMRO, you probably don't remember that name, but AB and AMRO was the 800 pound gorilla in wholesale back in the 2000s. And we had a product called Moai, which was mortgages online at Interfirst. And it was the industry leading wholesale platform where we really gave brokers the ability to clear their own

closing conditions and for the top brokers gave them the ability to clear their own underwriting conditions, which was, I mean, far and above ahead of everybody else. So, and that kind of brings us to where we are now with, you know, the technology advances over the last 10 or 15 years. But think about a technology person and a mortgage banker. The mortgage business is so complex.

It's easier to take a mortgage banker that knows the nuts and bolts of a mortgage file and teach them technology than it is to take a technology person and have them sell to a mortgage banker. So I think in your situation, the fact that you know what goes into a mortgage file and teach you technology, then it would be vice versa. There's nothing worse than hearing somebody in a technology demo and they're talking to mortgage bankers and they call it a one

than a 10.03 or an application or whatever. Mortgage bankers like to have people sell to them or talk to them that have been in their shoes and understand the industry.

Carter (04:03.618)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Most lenders are slow to adopt new tech. It's a pretty slow, antiquated industry. When you're sitting across from someone who's been doing the same thing for 20 years, how do you get them to move and do something new?

Dewayne Starling (04:20.956)
Yeah, mean, if you think about 20 years, anybody that is stuck in their ways for 20 years and hasn't adopted technologies, they've probably been lapped and they're probably going to the wayside by now.

because, you know, I mean, when I was at LA May and sold in Compass, I covered the South, I live in Virginia, so I covered the Southeast and, you know, I covered the rural areas, you know, South Carolina, Georgia, down in Mississippi, Arkansas, down in those areas. And you would talk to these loan officers that were stuck in their ways and they were like, no, you know, don't, know, our customers, you know, they don't want to go online and they don't want to go online and make application. I hear you, but maybe the older folks

Folks don't, but I used to use the analogy that when my kids graduate college, they're not gonna go and sit in a branch and take a two hour application. They're gonna go to Starbucks on their laptop and buy a $6 coffee and scroll for listings and make application that way. So either you adopt to the times or the times are gonna pass you. I mean, Freddie Mac just announced that it's the cost to originate a loan

has gone up 35 % just in the last few years, over $3,000. And it's gone, really in the last 15 years, it's gone from $1,500 to get a loan from application to selling it on the secondary market to almost $13,000. So, you know, in the advent of AI over the last year or so, really over the last couple of years, is going to really drive down that cost. So unless you're adopting the technology, you're going to fall behind.

Carter (06:05.294)
That's correct, I didn't realize that. Why has the cost gone up so much?

Dewayne Starling (06:08.412)
Well, I mean, a lot of it is compliance and the things that are, it's slowing down the process and it's kind of arduous, if you will. So, I mean, a lot of these things, it's taken more more time to get the loans through. And if we can use the technology to cut down on those processes, you're never gonna do away with a loan officer,

or an underwriter, closer, secondary marketing people, but if we can cut down on some of those mundane tasks, and a lot of the compliance that came after 08, 09, a lot of that's what's driven those costs up. That's what's gonna push the cost back down to where it needs to be.

Carter (06:54.922)
Okay, because that's actually what I wanted to ask. I was watching some Encino videos and I know they're not, you guys aren't trying to get rid of the human element entirely. And I've closed some loans at Rocket Mortgage without ever talking to a person, which is pretty crazy. They've had stuff like that. But then they also lose a lot of leads when they don't, you know, people ask questions, you're not able to talk to somebody, they lose a lot of leads that way. So they don't really, weren't really pushing that, you know, software or that little.

Dewayne Starling (06:59.237)
Yeah.

Dewayne Starling (07:03.824)
Yep.

Dewayne Starling (07:11.333)
Yeah.

Carter (07:23.768)
thing too much. Where's the line between AI automation and keeping humans in the process? You're saying more mundane things usually is what you guys focus on trying to knock out.

Dewayne Starling (07:32.698)
Yeah, and I think you can have that. I think you can close loans without talking to people, but I think your average borrower...

is going to want to speak to somebody at some point because something always comes up, something always happens, you're going to need a document. But I mean, you get the notifications on your iPhone, your screen time every day. It's almost embarrassing. know, you're like, mean, three, three and a half hours yesterday, what was I doing that I was on my phone three and half hours or sometimes it's more egregious than that six hours like, what did I do with my day that was on my phone for six freaking hours? So but that's your consumers as well, right? So they're on

Carter (07:55.95)
Yeah.

Dewayne Starling (08:11.716)
phones are on their phones all the time and we've got the mobile app so the consumers can access it that way. So they can access that information but when they want to pick up the phone and they want to talk to somebody, the human element is a big, big piece of it as opposed to just staring at the technology and not having that human element as a piece of it.

Carter (08:34.068)
And the other thing I saw you were at the NBA conference representing Encino is a gold sponsor demoing solutions at the booth. How do you show someone the value of what you're doing before they lose interest and walk away? How do you hook them?

Dewayne Starling (08:40.795)
Yep.

Dewayne Starling (08:46.652)
you know what? mean, when you're at the NBA, you have a myriad of...

people in different roles coming through, right? So you have back office people, have ops people that are on the back end, have underwriting, closing, post closing type of people, secondary marketing, and then you have frontline sales. So it depends on who's coming through, what you're wanna show them. And honestly, a lot of the AI is driven towards that back office, because that's where a lot of the efficiencies are coming down.

from a process and underwriting standpoint, like our doc validation, where it's coming through when the consumer uploads a document and it's automatically looking through and saying, hey, that's a picture of your dog. That's not a picture of your paste up or your W2 or whatever it is. And it automatically lets them know that's speeding up the process. Or if it's a sales manager that's coming through and you're talking to them, hey, what can your point of sale do for us and my

sales team, you you're going to go, hey, listen, you can code brand with your realtors, builders, financial planners, engage with them. You can have your LOs information on there as well as your realtors information, their picture, their logo, that type of thing. So the realtor can share that app with their consumer. So they're co-branding. You basically have your realtor partners, builder partners out selling for you. Also with your consumers, your consumers

can share the app. So when somebody at work says, hey, who did you get your loan through? Hey, I got my loan through Carter. Let me share his app with you. So they're actually out selling for you as opposed to going, hey, I'm going to text you Carter's number. And three weeks later, hey, I lost that LO's number. Can you text it to me again? There's different levels of what people are going to want to see when they come by the booth.

Carter (10:47.552)
And you know, not to name names or anything, but is there any, any AI products or anything in lending right now that you think is a lot of hype?

Dewayne Starling (10:50.012)
Mm-hmm.

Dewayne Starling (10:55.644)
You know, mean, when OCR, it started as OCR, then it came into AI. And I think there's a little bit of hype with some of it. But it's really kind of hit full stride in the last six, eight months to a year, if you will. But there's a lot of cool stuff out there, if you will. But actually what it's doing and how much ROI it's driving is going to remain to be seen, right?

So.

Carter (11:27.927)
Yeah.

Dewayne Starling (11:28.7)
I mean, and you ask lenders what they're doing and they're still a little bit skeptical about it. But like I said, where the rubber meets the road, just like with our doc validation piece, a consumer uploads 15 documents and they're sitting at their phone or at their laptop right then, it immediately goes, hey, that's not a picture of your pay stub or it's blurry or whatever it is and lets them know immediately as opposed to they upload it and

then processors are busy. It might be three days or a week before a processor looks at that stack of documents and gets back to the consumer. And the consumer's like, man, I uploaded those last Thursday. Why are you just getting back to me today? And they've lost a week in the process of the loan. So when you look at secondary marketing, you look at the hedge, and you've got a 30 day lock, and you've already lost a week on that, that's real money.

Carter (12:18.189)
Right.

Carter (12:29.098)
And you've been in the mortgage industry your entire career. How has compounding helped your career? Would you recommend people stay in the same industry or the same vertical? Or is that not you think that big of a big of a deal?

Dewayne Starling (12:41.468)
Yeah, you know, can't, you know, I have been, you know, I've been doing this for a long, long, long time. I don't know how it is in other industries, but I think compounding in our industry, especially so. And I don't know how long you've been doing this, but I mean, I've been this for 30 plus years. I've got hundreds and hundreds of friends throughout the industry, you know, from when I originated from wholesale, you know, I've got multiple text threads every day from, you know, various friends.

and different, you know, from my different journeys throughout the industry. And compound, it's super important, you know, I mean, because, you know, and it's navigated to different jobs as I've gone through the industry as well, Carter. So I think that's a big part of it. And also, you know, you know, being able to place, you know, vendors, because I've got friends with different vendors. So when you walk around at TMC was this week, I didn't go out to Scottsdale, but, you know, I friends reaching out to know if I was there.

Carter (13:34.987)
Right.

Dewayne Starling (13:41.542)
and say no but I know so-and-so is there you know stop by and talk to them and have a drink or a cup of coffee or whatever the networking piece in our industry is absolutely paramount

Carter (13:53.934)
okay yeah that make i should roll that i'm in phoenix i should a yesh were all out there uh...

Dewayne Starling (13:57.998)
yeah, sure. Well, had OB. OB was out there as well as TMC.

Carter (14:02.994)
And kind of on that same note, lot of tech is hot right now. A lot of mortgage bankers are trying to make the transition to B2B SaaS. What should they know? I know you made the transition a long time ago. Any tips for them trying to make that transition, anything they should be doing?

Dewayne Starling (14:10.171)
Yep.

Dewayne Starling (14:18.768)
You know, there's a lot of tech vendors out there.

You know, I think, like I said, I think going from mortgage to tech is a lot easier than somebody that's in technology trying to go to mortgage. I would just try to get anywhere on the ladder. You know, it could be anywhere. It could be in the LOS space. It could be in the point of sale space, the PPE product and pricing. It could be in credit, closing, title, in the appraisal space, the CRM marketing compliance. You can go with the agencies or hedging or

servicing. Just get with one of the technology vendors and get there and sell and move from there and then just get kind of the lay of the land and you know the industry in the end it's like the Kevin Bacon game it's really kind of a small industry in the end and it back to that compounding effect everybody kind of knows everybody you know went in and kind of looked at a couple of your episodes that you've done you know everybody kind of knows

everybody in the end if you've been doing it for a few years.

Carter (15:28.494)
That makes a lot of sense because I've done a few episodes with people in education tech, like selling that stuff. yeah, oddly, all these people do seem to... I mean, it is, guess, like anything. Yeah, a lot of people know each other in the same industry.

Dewayne Starling (15:34.127)
Yeah.

Dewayne Starling (15:43.791)
Right, right, right, right.

Carter (15:46.744)
Cool, well think that was pretty good. I'll end it right here.

Dewayne Starling (15:50.768)
Perfect. I appreciate it.