Process, Discipline & $30M/Year with Chris Kerr of Elements Financial

Tony Thompson: Hey guys, it's Tony Thompson. Welcome back to another episode of Chasing Yes. Welcome everyone to another episode of Chasing Excellence. I'm Tony Thompson, your host for today. I'm excited to have with me my guest today who is a ⁓ great originator, actually a top producer here in the Indianapolis, Indiana market, and Chris Kurtz, Elements Financial Credit Union. Chris, thanks a lot for joining me today on Chasing Excellence. Thanks for having me, Tony. Hey, first of all, ⁓ 10 years in the business. 20 years technically, 10 years at 10 years at Element, yes, 20 years in the business. Don't look like it, man. That's great. That is great. Thank you. ⁓ For those who don't know, Element's Financial Credit Union, share a little bit about Element. Sure. We're a local ⁓ credit union here in Indianapolis. Originally founded back in the 1930s, Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union. A few years ago, about 10 years ago when I joined Element, we changed our name from Eli Lilly Federal Credit Union to Element's Financial. to bring on other employers in addition to just Eli Lilly, places like IU Health, One America, Butler University, places like that. Great. Now, someone may be saying, oh, okay, work for a credit union that's in-house business. People are coming to you, but your role is a little bit different, Chris. That is correct. I'm an outside originator, so I'm not inside of the Eli Lilly facilities or anything like that. I go out and try and bring business into the credit union. We're a nationally accredited. credit union so we do loans in all 50 states. You don't have to be affiliated with one of those employers to get a loan with us. So we're local but we can go all over the country. Great. Great. I like to say everybody has a story. Sure. When they started and how they got into the mortgage industry. Chris, what's your story? Well, I feel like it's a good story and it kind of fell into my lap is the way that I would describe it. I would say it was almost an accident that I got into the industry. originally I attended Indiana University for criminal justice and psychology. I wanted to be either an attorney or a police officer. I was a police officer for a brief period of time back in early 2000. Did that for a bit and just didn't feel like it was the right thing for my personality and wanted to get into something else and decided to make a leave in 2004. believe it was? Yeah, no 2006. So 20 years ago, and decided that I was good at sales. I had done sales in the past and different things, whether it was waiting tables or working in a store. And I was like, I feel like I'm good at sales. I need to get into that. And found somebody in my hometown where I was living and kind of lucked into finding a mentor by the name of Denny Frecker that taught me everything you do. had done it for a long time and was very successful at it. got to listen to him and how he worked with borrowers and I was able to build off that. I'm appreciative of that relationship to this day. Wow. Wow. Love that story. Great story. You do on average about 30 million a year, right over 100, 110 units or so. Working at a credit union, no outside, no inside referrals for the most part. What's your secret sauce? Chris? You know, I'm a I'm a straight shooter when it comes to working with people. ⁓ When I came to Elements, kind of, you know, I've been here 10 years now and I kind of looked at my, how I was doing things and what I was doing and I said, what do I need to do to go to the next level? Often, know, prided myself on taking the difficult deal and solving the puzzle and kind of going from there. And the... The biggest mistake I felt like I was making on deals was not necessarily being as thorough upfront on deals. I feel like that's a problem that we sometimes have in this industry that everybody now has, we'll go to this place and they'll give me a pre-approval, but they don't necessarily ⁓ are going through the documents and making sure that when they put their name on a pre-approval, that they actually get to the closing table and make it happen. And I made that decision 10 years ago to to kind of take it to the next level and to make sure I dive in and that all those things do happen and creating my own process. I think that's the number one thing that you have to do in this industry is create a process and make sure that that process is working and don't be afraid to tweak it in some way, shape or form, whether or not it's going through the loan estimate with somebody or diving into numbers and just being thorough and upfront with people I think is the best thing that I've done that has helped me. If I heard you correct, one of the nuggets, and I call them nuggets because I believe that along the way in life, if you grab a nugget, you're going to end up with a gold mine. so, know, nugget I heard from you is know your products and know who you are in terms of being the consummate business professional. Yeah, I would agree with that. That helps you win more deals. It does because It's just one of those things that when you treat people right and they understand it, they are appreciative of that business at the end of the day that you get them to the finish line. And one of the things when I feel like sometimes people give that quick pre-approval and then throughout the transaction things can kind of sometimes get stressful ⁓ as they're trying to problem solve before closing. I try to do that before the pre-approval. I try to dive into it. So that less stress throughout the transaction, you have confidence and that, you know, once that purchase agreement gets signed and you're ready to move, if those things haven't been solved ahead of time, that's when things get really stressful and referral partners get upset and maybe you don't get to the closing table. And I pride myself on getting people to the closing table. And if I've put my name on a pre-approval, I would say that I close 99 % of those. Love that, love that. During a lot of volume every year, purchase Originations on top of that. You're going to have some down days and bad days, good days and better days. How do you stay motivated, Chris? You know, I stay motivated by, I have a wife and two kids, my son's 19 and a freshman at Butler University and my daughter's a freshman in high school and you know, just being able to spend time with them and whether it's travel or just going on little trips and just stuff like that. Being able to help support my family and help them grow to become better people. That's what keeps my spirit alive and how I get to them. know, wake up every morning trying to focus on them and myself at the same time. You know, you say that, I always talk about one of my sayings is sometimes you have to change your sail and not that, you know, you... if you're out on a boat with a sailboat or something like that, sometimes the market moves in different directions and sometimes you have to adjust the way you sail or what you're going after business-wise and be ready to do that. I've always kind of looked at that as that. you know, I love that. Sometimes you have to change your sail. And we're talking in the aspect, we're sitting here almost right behind us in a beautiful little lake overview on set. so if you're sailing across the lake and the wind started blowing a different way, You've got to adjust yourself. That's right. And in our business, the key to success and in any business is understanding how to adjust the sale. And so I love that. ⁓ Chris, let's talk a little bit about, you know, you've been in the business 20 years, so let's go back 20 years. Sure. What would you tell your younger self, the younger Chris, now that you've been in the business, if you know 20 years ago that you will be sitting here, what would you be telling yourself 20 years ago? Create a process from the very beginning of something that, know, and make it a habit going through those. Be thorough, be upfront with people. I don't feel like I'm selling something, product to people. I'm helping them through. by educating them on the process to give them confidence that they're not being taken advantage of or, you know, just giving advice in the best way that I can and being honest with them and doing that from the very beginning, I think has just really helped me. I've not always done it that way, but I've grown into that person and trying to master that skill. Process, you know, so often originators, three, five, 10, 15 years in the business. but they don't have a repeatable, scalable, reputable process that is consistent to allow them to elevate their business. So I love that nugget around process. The sooner you get a consistent, repeatable, scalable process, the sooner you grow. For sure. Speaking of growing, ⁓ what would you tell that one person, Chris, who are trying to elevate their performance, their impact to where you are today? What piece of advice would you give them? Discipline. Wake up. You know, this is job that you work for yourself in some way, or form. your income potential is unlimited in some way, shape, or form, but you can also make zero at the end of the day. And if you don't have discipline to get up every day and, you know, if you work from home, like I work from home and I try to get up, shower, get ready, be professional for the day and not just laying around, but be disciplined, have a game plan, and keep track of things. Make sure, if your phone's not ringing, why is it not ringing? Are you doing the right things on a day-to-day basis to make that phone ring? Because nobody's out there making it ring for you if you're not. So that's my advice is be your phone's not ringing, why is it not ringing? For sure. Love that. Love that. But Chris, I tell you, man, I have been enjoying our conversation. I never like to end chasing excellence without talking about gratefulness. Sure. Chris, what are you most grateful for? You know, I look at it and I feel like I'm grateful for my family, you know, just the support around me from whether it's my brother, my sister, my mom, my kids, my wife, you know, all those and the support I get around them and and they help inspire me to try and be the best person that I can be. ⁓ That's part of it. You know, my health is another thing, whether it's physical or mental health. think those are both important things to be able to do this job because it is a stressful job across the board. Because if that phone's not ringing, maybe you're not making a paycheck. So having a good, strong, healthy body and healthy mind is something I'm grateful for. And then I would, you know, I have the best operations team. behind me with underwriting and processing. I am grateful for what they bring to the table that helped me become the best version of myself because I couldn't do it alone. ⁓ I have to have that team behind me and I'm grateful that they're there to help support me. Great. Love that. Love that. Well, I'm grateful that we had an opportunity to sit down, hear your story. I look forward coming back to Indy in the future. ⁓ seeing how you're progressing and the impact that you're making, not only in your life, but in those around you and in the community. So Chris, thank you for joining us for ⁓ this episode of Chasing Excellence. I'm Tony Thompson. I look forward to seeing you on our next episode of Chasing Excellence. See you soon.