- 3 days ago
In a conversation with HousingWire’s Allison LaForgia, Total Expert CEO Joe Welu discussed the company’s vision for the “10x lender,” how AI agents can transform customer engagement and why lenders need to rethink their operating models rather than simply improve existing processes.
“We call 10x lender, which is how do you take all the innovation that’s been happening in AI in this age of superintelligence and utilize that to reimagine lending and the business models and how to have this just exponential shift in what’s possible,” Welu said.
“We call 10x lender, which is how do you take all the innovation that’s been happening in AI in this age of superintelligence and utilize that to reimagine lending and the business models and how to have this just exponential shift in what’s possible,” Welu said.
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00:09From HousingWire headquarters in Dallas, Texas, I'm Allison LaForgia, and today I am sitting
00:14with the CEO of Total Expert, Joe Welliu. Joe, thank you for joining me today.
00:19Hey, Allison, thanks for having me. Good to be with you guys.
00:21I am excited to sit with you because you've had so much energy from your onstage session
00:26in the early summer. You challenged lenders to think beyond incremental innovation and
00:32consider what is now possible with AI. Why is the old model no longer sufficient?
00:39So, great question. I really enjoyed talking about a concept we call 10x lender, which is
00:46how do you take all the innovation that's been happening in AI in this age of super intelligence
00:53and utilize that to reimagine lending and the business models and how to have this
01:01exponential shift in what's possible. And so it's really the spirit of thinking big and
01:09bold right now and meeting what we think is the most exciting time in human history from
01:15an innovation standpoint. And the old models, if you think about it, you can't just barely
01:24iterate or slight improvements on existing processes or sort of frameworks, right? So if you think
01:31about a direct-to-consumer channel, it's not about just putting more people in a call center
01:37and buying more data. It's about reimagining the whole engine. And it's the same in retail or
01:42across the channels of business. And so if you think about how to leverage AI agents plus humans,
01:48it requires a really a different model. And when I say different model, that's really what we mean.
01:54What I think is different in this conversation, how this conversation is evolved with you and with
02:00Total Expert and the capabilities that you guys are really relentlessly pursuing is that you're
02:07talking about exponential change in a whole different operating model instead of incremental
02:14processing. Yeah. So if you think about most innovation till now, okay, in the last couple of
02:20years, really, it was incremental. Step, step up, step up. And this is an entire shift in the curve
02:30in terms of the capabilities, the velocity of the technology and how it's improving. Intelligence is
02:37now everywhere in every product, in everybody's businesses. And that has enabled things to,
02:46you know, give you an example. I was having a conversation with the CEO of a top five lender
02:50last week. And we were talking about, you know, we find ourselves in this, you know, unfun maybe rate
02:58environment today, but ultimately it's a cyclical industry. And so there's going to be moments in time
03:02where rates will come back down. And you'll have these moments where I need to be able to contact
03:10with precision every past customer immediately and educate them on what's going on in the market and
03:17how we can be helpful to them. And if you don't do that, you sort of lose the most valuable
03:22thing in
03:22your business, which is your customer relationship. So if you think about that mind mentality,
03:29the old days I was limited, uh, only to my people's ability to take a list of people,
03:37call those people, get ahold of those people. Well, now if I can use AI agents from a texting
03:42and a calling and an appointment scheduling and an information, I can call a hundred thousand people
03:47in five minutes or five seconds, like all at the same time.
03:50And give them the information that best serves them.
03:53Yes. And that interaction now has so much context. You know, the work we've done at Total
04:01Expert is really thinking about how do you combine the system of context within these different,
04:07and then tie that to the different actions I need. And so if you think about those and negate
04:12interactions with the consumer, the context is really perfect in most cases, meaning I understand
04:20exactly what was important to you, Alison, as a, as a homeowner, we know your loan amount. We know
04:27every time you've inter, um, interacted with our brand over the last couple of years, we know which
04:33marketing content you got. We know all of the things, and that can be brought into shaping a very
04:38personalized, very relevant conversation, which ends up, we think, providing a win-win to everybody.
04:46You get better outcomes and experiences for the consumers, and you have the organization now
04:51has the ability to achieve more.
04:53So when you have these AI and agentic capabilities, and those tools can assume more operational work,
05:01how do you think lenders should rethink the loan officer's role?
05:05Yeah, that's powerful question. And the simplest answer is how do I elevate people to the highest
05:16and best use of their time? And what are they naturally skilled at doing? Right? So most loan
05:23officers, if I really think about an ideal scenario, what do I want them doing? I want them out in
05:30the,
05:30and this is really a retail loan officer example. I want them out in the marketplace. I want them
05:36educating consumers, one to many. I want them building rapport and relationships and brand,
05:42that top of funnel. What do I ideally not want them doing? Setting in a CRM, right? CRM is dead
05:50was,
05:50you know, somewhat of a controversial slide that I showed at your summit.
05:55Um, but do I really want those people that are amazing at creating rapport and trust with the
06:02market and consumers and delivering education and brand aware, all those things. I really want them
06:09in a system, clicking through screens, filtering their databases, remembering to call people back,
06:16or do I want an engine that I can build around them, underneath them, and then just put them in
06:22those
06:22moments, very focused, highest and best use of their time every day. And that really will continue
06:31to be the differentiator where you have all of this access and an ultra informed borrower who's really
06:37looking for someone who can partner with them, who they trust to get them through this interaction.
06:43Yeah. A lot of the, a lot of the studies that we look at a lot of the data, we
06:47have obviously look
06:48at a lot of data would tell you that consumers value deeply, um, expertise. They value feeling like
06:59somebody is giving them high quality advice. Um, even though they can essentially educate themselves
07:06online and different things, the way, at least a lot of the buyer cohorts, the consumer cohorts,
07:14the data tells us that they still value that interaction and that, um, advice and those,
07:20but it just in the moments that it really matters. They don't want noise. They don't want to be inundated.
07:26They don't want to be inundated and they don't want things that are totally not relevant. They
07:29don't want to be sold. They don't want to be quote unquote, transacted. I just sat through a,
07:35a session with my good friend, Sue Woodard and Garth Graham of Stratmore. And we talked about
07:41their, they do this secret shopper thing, right? And it is where consumers, uh, they go out and they
07:51shop and they, they deliver their, their findings on the experience. And what they found is so many,
07:57there's such a great opportunity for people to raise the bar because most of the interactions from
08:03a lot of lenders still is about making that person really feel transactional. And, and I think
08:10in many ways it's because they're putting a sales person in only in the part of the funnel where,
08:18hey, they're not quite ready yet. They're not sure, or they're asked having to really find out if it's
08:22worth their time. Okay. And the consumer feels that, right? So if I set up an engine correctly,
08:28I am bringing consumers a good way through that funnel. And then I'm putting the loan officers in
08:33those moments where the consumer really does want and values advice and things like that.
08:37Now what separates the companies that have incremental improvement from those that embrace this
08:44true transformation that you're talking about of that lending operating model and how can lenders
08:50recognize the difference? So I don't think you can recognize it at a moment in time. What you can
08:58recognize is rapid progress and, uh, really attacking problems one at a time, um, sequentially,
09:08incrementally. And so I'll give you an example, how we work with a lot of our largest customers
09:12and sophisticated lenders is we will look at these discrete problems. Let's say it's recapture or it's
09:20pull through, or it's a data problem. And we will tackle those problems as quick and aggressively as
09:27possible. Get some wins on the board. Okay. Get some points on the board. So we made it, we made
09:32a
09:32piece of progress on an important problem. And then let's compound that what's the next
09:37thing that will add the most value. It's really simple. As far as a technology provider,
09:43our entire job is how do we create capability capabilities that deliver value to our customers?
09:50And then how can we help them realize that value as fast as possible? Because speed is
09:54really important right now. It's key. And I want to double down there because you've provided
10:00numerous examples of how you've seen true operational transformation and the impact of that. But even when
10:08you have technology and the business case that's super compelling, there can be some organizational
10:15resistance and that can really impact and slow down the adoption of technology that you know will
10:22benefit your organization. What have you learned about helping lenders embrace a fundamentally different
10:29model? So here's what I've learned. Number one, leadership has to be willing to be bold and they have to
10:35be
10:36willing to do things that are not always going to be based on consensus, right? Natural human behavior
10:44or natural human tendencies are averse to change. It's uncomfortable many times, right? It's, hey, I've
10:53done it this way. We see this in organizations that fail to really realize the benefits of some of these
11:00new
11:00innovations is they're relying on sort of a mentality and a mindset that's like, well, I'm fine with my
11:06spreadsheet. I'm fine. I'm going to be the one to call every one of my past customers. Really? You're
11:13going to call 2000 people? Really? You know, a couple of times a year, you're going to go check in
11:19with
11:19them and have a high quality conversation and offer them something of value. You're going to do that,
11:24right? No, the answer is no, of course. But it's unpopular to say, hey, we're going to, we're going
11:31to stand up an AI agent or a series of AI agents and they're going to reach out on your
11:35behalf.
11:35They're going to keep your customers engaged and educated. And we're going to, we're going to do
11:39that over a long period of time. And then we're going to bring these opportunities back to you
11:43that those types of things feel uncomfortable to the people that are in the, in the business every
11:49day. So resistance is going to be there. And on the other side of that resistance is all of
11:58all the greatness. That's where all the growth is. You have to push through the resistance. And
12:03I think as leaders and as organizations and businesses, we are all working towards
12:11re-imagining certain parts or all of our businesses really in an age where AI can elevate humans to do
12:18more and better and bigger things than they ever imagined. But to do that requires change management.
12:24It requires really intentional effort consistently to get people to see a different way. And then you
12:34have to bring them along. Now, as the industry moves beyond that traditional outdated CRM model and toward
12:43this 10X lender vision, how could that reshape the experience both for mortgage professionals and
12:50really importantly, for the customers that they serve? What possibilities do you believe are now
12:56within reach that were not realistic even a few years ago?
12:59Yeah. Well, let me start on the consumer side, right? So as a consumer,
13:05I have the ability or I should expect and have a standard and in certain parts of their
13:12things they shop for and purchase and services, they have maybe higher level experiences, but
13:17deep personalization, right? I mean, we've talked about Netflix a couple of different times,
13:22but if I think about that experience to where I get precisely what is relevant to me, knows me,
13:29the same thing on other products and things like that. And so how do I reimagine or how is the
13:35experience
13:35now possible for a consumer today? Well, we're seeing, I can go through and I can have pretty much
13:45instantaneous, always qualified, exactly what my buying power is, exactly how I could improve my
13:53financial situation. This information should be accessible in real time all the time. And you should
14:01be able to interact with your lender of choice and you should be able to get scenarios and presentations
14:11of things that are helpful to you if you're curious, right? I'm curious about maybe what I could do with
14:17my equity in my home to build wealth. I'm curious maybe about a reverse mortgage and what that could do.
14:22I should be able to get that education all the time in real time and it should be very precise
14:28to my personal financial profile. That is possible today. That's insane. Yeah, it's insane, right?
14:36It's insane. So that's on the consumer side. What is possible on the lender side
14:42is if you, I'll give you one analogy or one thing that we think is going to be possible.
14:50And I was with my good friend, Sean Bonozian here a couple of weeks ago and we're having this
14:54conversation. We were thinking about all of the data and intelligence and agentic capabilities.
14:59And we were talking about how he's built his business and billion plus dollars in production.
15:05And he's had himself and a, you know, a team of people around him. And he's like,
15:11I think that there will be in the next handful of years, there will be a single person that does
15:17a
15:17billion dollars in production. They will have AI agents that do their marketing, that do their
15:24database monitoring, that do their outreach. They will spend most of their time on brand engagement,
15:32events, educating the marketplace, building brand, building or following those types of things.
15:39And then they'll build these engine, this engine underneath that to be able to fill that volume.
15:44And we think it's possible with one person, with one person. So you think about that,
15:48that's even more than 10 X, but I think any lender, any organization, any bank,
15:54you think about the business outcomes, the efficiencies, how can I better serve my customer?
15:59How can I elevate people to just create and do more and have really better fulfillment in their jobs
16:06because they're not doing tasks that they don't value from, right? It is really an exponential game
16:13that we have the ability to plan. Well, I can't wait to see more adoption.
16:17I know that this was a very interesting message when you first announced it on stage. Joe,
16:23thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Alison.