Lessons from a CRO: Scaling a Tech Company in 2026 | Joe Zeibert (Mortgage Cadence)

Carter (00:01.142)
Hey Joe, give the people a quick intro. Who are you and what do you do?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (00:05.927)
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on, Carter. So I am Joe Zeibert. I'm the chief revenue officer at Mortgage Cadence. So I've been in the mortgage industry a long time, pre-financial crisis. So did all that fun going through there. And then, yeah, very excited to have recently joined Mortgage Cadence under our new leadership of the original founder, kind of getting out there and helping to redesign how LOSs work and how workflow works. So excited to work with all the clients and excited to talk to you about sales in general.

Carter (00:36.514)
You, like you said, you just stepped into the CRO role at Mortgage Cadence. When you start a new leadership role like that, what do you look at first? Like what do the first 90 days look like when you come in?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (00:46.889)
Yeah, I mean, it's a good question. I there's a lot of different things to think about as you go through. And I think the first thing you always want to look at is what's the history of the company and where do you want to go from there? I remember way back, while I was working in Banking, I was also the president of a school. And we brought in an executive director. And she's just like, I'm just going to sit and watch the first year. And I'm like, sometimes that's right.

but we really needed immediate change and then she was gone in a couple of months and that wasn't the way to go. So I think whether you need to jump into action immediately and start making changes or sit back and kind of take stock of where you are, what's going to inform that decision is what's the history of the people, what's the history of the company, where have they been and where are they going? So, you know, lot of my first couple of weeks in addition to jumping in on deals and working with clients and

getting up to speed on everything is really how are we going to go where we want to go next? How are we going to get this vision that Mike's laid out for us and how are we going to bring it there based on the history and the missteps as well from the past and the successes of the past. You know, I'll leave with just an interesting story on history. Remember one of my previous companies a while back, someone, one of my, I can't remember if it was a pier or one up diagonal.

He was like, hey, can you look at this model documentation? I have this new product idea. I read through it. I was like, this is great. I agree. Like, I really think we should do this. And he said, will you go to the CEO with me and will you support me on this endeavor? I said, sure. We get to the meeting. He opens the meeting with, I know I've been pushing this for four or five years and you don't want to do it, but, and I'm like, okay, like the history matters. Like maybe had I known that, maybe I would have counseled a little bit differently. So.

Carter (02:39.47)
Tough start, yeah.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (02:39.561)
You know, really want to dig in and understand the why as I'm changing what I want to change.

Carter (02:44.3)
You know, how do you learn all those things? Like I'm curious is a lot of times when you come in as CRO, is it at this stage, there's a certain playbook that generally works or a lot of these things you're doing, they're just based on things you've done in leadership roles in the past that you learned just as time goes on. Or is there a thing that typical CROs do in these situations that generally leads to having success?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (03:07.273)
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is based on what issues is the company having at the time, right? If someone's, you know, if a company is extremely in debt and they're not pricing right, like there's a lot of tactical things you need to do on day one, right? That's not the position, you know, that we're in, excuse me, from our standpoint, but I'm still reviewing all those things, right? How does our pricing lock? We had different owners before. Are they right? Are the metrics right? Are the ways that we're thinking about?

what we're doing correct. And then also the clients, right? Are the clients happy? Are the clients not? Where do we want to go? I think a trap that, you know, a lot of people fall into earlier in their career is, and this probably comes from a lot of marketing from like the seventies and the eighties of the client's always right. And what I'll say is the clients right frequently. The problem is they don't know what they don't know, right?

Carter (03:55.64)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (04:04.073)
a feature might not be working and they might say, I need you to fix this feature. That's not getting to their pain point on why are they asking that and what are they doing? So you really want to dig in and say, what are the client needs? Not what are the clients asking for? Not what are the JIRA tickets looking like? But what are these people saying holistically? And then how can you work with product to build the product that's going in that direction? And I think a good...

you know, example from our standpoint is, you know, Mike came in and he's very clear on, you know, when he started the company two decades plus ago, it wasn't automating workflows. We don't want to take what you do manually and automate it. And, you know, today we don't want to take what you do and automate it. We want to redefine how people are manufacturing mortgages, not just listening to, okay, that's great. Let's redo it. And we really think you can get to a, you know, 10 to one people if you're using AI.

Carter (04:43.118)
Hmm.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (05:01.181)
and you're using all the agents that we have that we building out. But really taking stock and understanding the customers is first and foremost and the most important thing.

Carter (05:10.688)
Okay, that makes sense. You've operated through one of the toughest mortgage cycles in recent history. How does that experience shape how you sell on the lenders today?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (05:20.777)
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good, that's a good call out, right? I mean, both going through, you know, the great financial crisis when I was at Bank of America during the whole country-wide acquisition and then through COVID as well. It gives you perspective to understand the clients. And I really feel like that's always been one of the most important things, right? Like I've run different areas of different mortgage companies. And that was always how I wanted to go about my career, right? When I went...

to be there, wanted to go into finance, wanted to go into risk, wanted to do these things so that I could empathize with the people in that role saying, I've been in your shoes. I your question about the crisis is great, because we've all been through something now in an industry collectively. And being able to say, hey, you know what, I've been through multiple cycles. I understand that. You know, there's a lot of pain points that I think need to be addressed. And you know, it's not just an academic coming in and saying stuff, although that

that is important. But I think something that we always really want to focus on is that it is different and unique problems that everybody has, but it's the same general issue where I feel like technology has really failed the more generation's space, right? If you look over the last 10 years, there have been tons of companies and tons of tech and tons of amazing things that have come into the market. But really, there's only one reason for all that technology is

to make things more efficient and to bring down the cost to originate. If you bring down the cost to originate, the customer gets a better price, the customer wins, the lender wins. The cost to originate has gone up exponentially over the last decade. Technology has failed us in this industry, which is why re-imagining how the process works is the solve to get where we need to get to. it's not, and I took a lot of this learning from the crisis when...

Carter (06:51.256)
Yeah.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (07:15.401)
Hey, when refis are back, they'll save us. When refis are back, they'll save us. I think the smart firms have said, no, no, we need to figure out how to live in a purchase world. You know, from 2009 to 2019, no one had to, but people said it. It's the ones that doubled down and say, we're going to invest in technology when things are tough. We're going to do these certain things when things are tough that emerge even better, right? There was consolidation after 07, 08. There's consolidation after COVID.

Carter (07:18.731)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (07:43.751)
the people that focus on really making it better for the customer are the ones that are going to succeed.

Carter (07:49.773)
A lot of people have talked about this, that the cost to originate has gone up so much as time goes on. What's the, but is it regulation is the main problem with this? Like how does, how does, how does software, software bring these, these costs? Is it just less, less labor is going to bring the cost down as well? And with things being automated, is that a big part of it?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (08:08.605)
Yeah, I mean, think that's a good question. I mean, there's definitely been a regulation component. I don't want to downplay regulation. mean, we all are a lot of us read, lived through trade. I mean, that was a huge regulation change, but we've been a fairly consistent regulation for a long time. I don't think that it's fair to blame everything on on that. I do think it is really the core principle of

Are we just taking things that exist today from pencil and paper and automating them or from Excel and fax machines, right? And automating them. I think that loses, you know, the, forest for the trees. think there are some lenders that were out there, you know, 10 years ago, they're really redefined how we work right there. There's some, you know, biggest guys out there where a different person is processing alone based on what that person's background is. And you, you kind of, you know, pre AI we're getting people to function.

as an AI would today. I think you can't just say, hey, here's a processor, here's a closer, here's an underwriter, make an underwriter AI. I think you need to reimagine that process. And I do think technology will get us substantially better and substantially cheaper. But again, the problem is the industry has been promising that for a decade plus, but I think we're ready to deliver at this inflection point, especially with agentic AI and everything we have out there.

Carter (09:30.54)
You talk and write a lot about the value of data in the mortgage industry. How are you using data inside your own sales process at Mortgage Cadence?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (09:34.525)
you

Joe Zeibert, CMB (09:39.677)
Yeah, I mean, it's a great, that's a great question, right? You want everything to be data-driven. You also don't want to lose the forest for the trees, right? You can't just rely only on the data says this, the data says this. A lot of it is why the data says that. So, you know, I always bring it down to a sales process. I've had leaders in the past where they've said, I don't understand why these banks aren't buying if you can show a positive ROE.

It's their financial responsibility to do it regardless. And to me, that's losing the forest for the trees, right? That's someone that's never sat in the seat of the person under the stresses at that person in the bank that's dealing with 800 other things that they need to do. So we do think from a data standpoint, you need to be able to justify all the features. You need to be able to prove cost savings, benefit savings. You need to show all that. That's just one step though. That's not the end all be all. And then obviously from the AI standpoint, right?

When you have these agents out there, right, AI agents that are doing functions for you, you want to make sure you're leveraging the right data, but also giving them a point of view, right? You don't just want them spilling out a million pieces of information. They have to have a purpose and a focus and a rationale. And I actually think that's true of all technology vendors, right? You need to have a point of view on why you do what you do. So we need to leverage that data to build the agents the same way.

because what you don't want is like AI today where it's like, that's such a great question. Wow. And you're like, yeah, you know, in a personal setting, fine. But in a work setting, like, no, that's not a good question. You can't charge that person extra X just because, right? Like it's got to keep us within the regulatory guardrails of what we need to do. So we're leveraging the data all over the place. But it's really how can you tell the story with that data? That's the important part.

Carter (11:32.302)
You co-wrote a blog at FICO, you wrote blogs and made videos at Nomus. I don't really see, I mean, I know the thought leadership thing isn't a new thing, but I don't see that many CROs or people in this space doing that. How much does that thought leadership affect sales? Does a lot of business tend to come through those types of avenues?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (11:40.413)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (11:51.389)
Yeah, no, it absolutely, it absolutely does. And I think it's super, it's super critical. I mean, everyone's at a different life cycle as a company, right? Like when I was at Bank of America, there was no reason to go out publicly and say, Bank of America understands how checking accounts work. I think we all know that, right? But if you're building a new division or something new as the places you previously mentioned, and this kind of gets back to having a point of view, right? When I was at the bank side, the thing that would always drive me crazy.

is when vendors would come and say, we can build you whatever you want. And I would say, if I knew exactly what I wanted, I would just build it myself, right? Like, I don't need you to come in and just have an erector set and do whatever I'm telling you to do. That's my time. That's not where we need to get to on that. I think a lot of the blogs, a lot of the going to conferences, a lot of the webinars are to show that, you know, we have a point of view and we have a level of expertise.

or you want to come in as someone that's going to give advice, give feedback, call BS on them, if it's BS, and then push and get to a better situation. You know, I'm a big, big believer in, you know, just general sociology of, you know, more diverse viewpoints in a conversation, get out better results. It's the same thing. It's not just the lender saying what they want. We need to be going back and forth, having that dialogue and pushing on each other to get the best solution. And again, if it's just a

do whatever you want, that's not gonna be the best solution. So doing this thought leadership shows this is our point of view, this is what we believe in, and the system works like this because, and it does come into play for getting more business and getting more sales, because as you're going through the sales process, we have a product, MCP Essentials, which is essentially an out of the box workflow. You can choose a couple workflows, but easy setup, out of the box, faster and cheaper than any of our competitors.

What you can't do is endlessly customize it, which is the whole point. So you need to be able to say to those customers, I understand you've always done it like this. We do it different because it's going to be better, faster, cheaper for you. I've written extensively about it. have data about it. And you're not going to do step six and seven and eight. You're just going to go from right five directly to nine because that's a better way to do it. And you get that credibility through that thought leadership.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (14:13.509)
It does generate a little bit of leads, but I think it's less about generating the leads and more about closing the deals faster because they already understand all of that about you. You're not reestablishing from scratch that credibility.

Carter (14:27.134)
What's one mistake you made early as a leader that forced you to change how you manage people?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (14:33.065)
Yeah, that's a great question. So I was always super driven to succeed, right? Like a lot of the incoming MBAs at the bank. Hey, I'm going to run this place one day. don't know if it's going to be 29 years or 30 years, but it's going to be one of those, right? Like everyone comes in with that. And I had very high performing teams early on. built very, very great high performing teams that said,

Carter (14:47.904)
Yeah.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (15:01.597)
you know, look at everyone else on the floor, we're outperforming everyone. And I looked at those people that had the same career trajectory as me on my team and was like, these are the best people, these are the rock stars, I'm going to pour all of my time and attention into these people, which is, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But what I probably did wrong at the time was that opposite group of people, right? Those people that are 10, 15, 20 years in role that don't have ambition to run the bank that are

They're clocking out at five o'clock to be with their family and they're subject matter experts on what they do, but they're not trying to do all the other stuff. And I think you need those, you need everyone, right? You need all kinds of people at a company. You need go-getters and loud people and quiet people and everything. And I don't think early on I had, you know, when I was in my twenties leading teams of people, you know, twice my age, I don't think I had that appreciation that a couple of those people that had been in a role.

so long and were not answering their phone on Saturday and Sunday like I was, right? Like that, I don't want say I wrote them off because I, you know, respected everyone on my team, but mentally I probably discounted them a little bit. Now being in my 40s, I don't, right? I appreciate that they're the team historians, they know the nits and gnats, and not that you can, you know, necessarily trust them a little more, but if they're not trying to move up to the next thing or do the next thing,

they might be coming from a different point of view. So now I really make sure that early on I identify, okay, these are the rock stars that are trying to move up. These are the rock stars that want to stay put and those are separate. And then everyone else who's not as good is not as good. But I do think I misstepped early on and maybe, you know, didn't do justice to one or two people. Then I'm like, hey, even now, some of them are still in that same role. And I'm like, wow, that's amazing.

Carter (16:53.112)
Yeah.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (16:55.603)
But I really think it takes all kinds of people and I have a better appreciation for that now than I think I did early on.

Carter (17:02.582)
And were you pushing those people super hard early on and then you kind of eased off or it was more just you were sort of discounted, not maybe discounted is a strong word, but you sort of went that direction.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (17:13.639)
Yeah, I mean, it was a limited ability to adjust my leadership style. Like now I feel like I can pivot up and down and, you know, talk to all different kinds of people. But, you know, I'd have one-on-ones with my team, you know, what do you want to do next? How can I help you get the next role? The things I'm the most proud of are the people that I've helped become CEOs and presidents and leaders of other institutions. I'd sit down with these people and I'd ask the same questions.

What do want to do next? And they didn't want to do something next, right? Like we weren't relating to each other at the same way. I don't think I ever like discounted their work or did anything like that, but it was just not giving my all to how can I help you manage your career? And I'm big on that, right? Our one-on-ones shouldn't be you telling me everything you're working on. If I don't know what you're working on, I'd miss the rest of the week. Like I should already know the one-on-ones are to help you grow your career, HR concerns, know, anything I need.

Carter (17:43.158)
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (18:09.225)
to help you out as your leader that can knock down walls and play defense for you. And I don't think I did that enough, you know, earlier on. I do think I've very quickly learned because then, you know, you go to lead the next team, you know, first you have a team of four and one person's like that, then you got a team of 60 and 10 people are like that. You're like, okay, well, this is a whole demographic. And so, you know, you easily learn that quickly. But yeah, just reflecting back, that's probably the thing I would have changed was how I approached.

Carter (18:18.894)
Yeah.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (18:37.523)
you know, people differently. But again, those are skills you get as you get older. How can you dynamically change who you're interacting with and why?

Carter (18:46.668)
As a final thought, what's one piece of advice you'd give someone listening right now who's maybe early in their sales career and wants to eventually be in a seat like yours?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (18:56.391)
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple, a couple of things that you really need to focus on. you know, one thing and something that's always served me really well in my career was not listening. And I think, I think a lot of the general platitudes that are out there are not, you know, spot on, right? They're like, it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's not really, it's a series of sprints, right? You're, not just even paced. Like you're faster and then you're slower.

You know, the same thing that people say about, you know, you can either be a generalist or you can go real deep. And I think you need a little bit of both. I think if you want to get into sales, you need to be a generalist to understand the whole industry. Right? I can sit down with capital markets people and joke about loan officers that were asking for ridiculous price and exceptions that they never should have gotten. And then the next meal with loan officers talk about the ridiculous capital markets people that aren't listening to their market feedback. Cause I've lived and breathed in those roles.

Carter (19:50.998)
Right.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (19:53.097)
I think if you want to get into this, you need to be broad enough to understand the whole industry. But then you also really need one or two things that you can really hang your hat on with deep, deep expertise. And I feel like I learned that very early, like super early in my career, right after I did consulting, when I went into banking, I was in this rotational program. at B of A, they were eight month rotations. And my very first rotation was in credit card. At the time, credit card was a little bit more of a mono line because they had

done whatever with MBNA and organizationally, wasn't as in. So there weren't people that knew about checking and deposits and mortgage. It was really a lot of credit card specific people. We had one guy that was one rotation ahead of me. So eight months of an expert who had gone through deposits. He was the de facto expert for the thousand people in that division to ask any questions about anything non credit card. He was your guy. And I was like, wow, like.

Carter (20:37.614)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (20:51.241)
He's not even really an expert and he's the guy you go to. I was like, how could I do it if I really had deep expertise in things? Right? went deep on Basel two and then Basel three on capital management on things that weren't necessarily readily relevant to my day job. But when you're sitting down with a CFO of a bank and you're talking about how their treasury function works because they're not hedging things appropriately based on cashflow, that's kind like, they're like, wow, you know what you're talking about on these nuances of

whatever it is, right? Hedging MSRs, whatever you're doing, right? You need to have some expertise that says, I'm not just surface level, I can't be deep on everything, but I have these expertises and I can talk to you deep about that. I think that gives a lot of credibility. think anyone that wants to go into a role like this has to have those deep, deep credibility's in a couple places and then be open about the places they don't. Hey, and then I'm, you know, brought on everything else, right? Like.

I was told in my previous role that I was a servicing expert. I think I'm light on servicing. I think that's one of the places I'm not as great and I'm open about like, hey, I think this is not as much my expertise as origination or capital markets or finance or risk would be. And I think knowing, knowing that and going in and being open is super important. you know, the other thing I would say when you're younger in your career that I thought of was just the ability to see and understand.

Carter (21:50.638)
Mm.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (22:15.815)
everything that's going on. I remember when I was doing consulting, was on one, it's on a big project and I was, you in my twenties and there was someone in their thirties and in their forties and in their fifties and we were all running and going to the gym together, but they all had different experiences and different background and different expertise. Just taking the time to listen to those stories on what they grew up through, what, the working culture was like when they were at that point helps you empathize and relate with those people. so I know I've said empathy a lot. I do think empathy.

is one of the biggest things that means success in this role. So that was more than one thing, but that's my general advice for the audience.

Carter (22:51.17)
And now that's helpful. I'm curious though, how do know what to go deep on?

Joe Zeibert, CMB (22:54.599)
Yeah, I think that's a great point. almost doesn't. It almost doesn't matter. There's so many experts. I had my CMB. There's a million things in the CMB study group that we were going through and everyone was an expert in a different area. And I respected everyone in my study group. mean, it can't be something super obscure, but that's something like as I was doing my rotations through the bank, that was almost the same thing. I want to rotate and learn how everything works. And then I want to pick.

what I want to go deep in, but you even need to wait, right? Like find out what projects are going on tangential to what you're doing and just get involved in it 5%, 2 % of your time and learn really deep about what somebody else does there. And then, you know, become an expert in it. It needs to be relevant to the industry, but if it's originations or it's sort of like, it doesn't matter what it is, but being expert on compliance or risk or something where you have a leg to stand on.

with the people that you're talking to.

Carter (23:54.838)
Alright, perfect. Well, I think we got some good stuff here. I will end it here.

Joe Zeibert, CMB (23:58.705)
Okay, fantastic. Well, I appreciate it. Thanks so much, Carter.