Listen up, guys, because we're in the house. You got Devin Dubuc, John Hinks,
and man, we're super excited to be bringing this show. We've been talking about it for a while now. And uh it's
happening, man. It's live. It is uh very live to be honest with you.
Like freaking out getting on stuff like that. And I'm like, Devin, I'm not good at this. But here we are. Silly guy that likes to dance on Tik Tok
is afraid to go live on the internet. Man, come on, brother. You got this.
You can re you can rehearse on Tik Tok. You can make you can you can do like 18 different
takes and then you're like, "Oh, that one doesn't make my butt look big. This is perfect. Let's go."
Well, you're sitting down today, so I think you're good. I think Exactly. Yes. You're That's it. Yeah. From here up, right?
And what's funny, and I hear this all the time because a lot of people uh they'll see me do stuff on video and then they meet me in person and they're
like, "You're way taller than you look on video." And John, like I'm 6'4. Like,
yeah. Yeah. It's It's always a trip to see people that meet me for the first time and they're like, "Whoa." And I'm
like, "All right, calm down a little bit, man. Calm down. It's all good. I'm not gonna eat you.
No ogre here. I'm not an ogre. Right. Well, you know, that's what's that's why we call it the mortgage giants, right?
Two two larger than life guys with larger than life personalities. And you know, we both have a lot of experience
in the mortgage industry. I've been doing this for 23 years. John, how long how long have you been in? Uh, same time. 2020.
Well, my dad started in ' 83, so I grew up in it, but personally, professionally, full-time 2004, I guess.
22 years. Yeah. You've been a little bit longer than me. Yeah. Just a little bit. What's funny is we're like a few days apart in age. Like I'm
like a few days. Like you're October I think you're five days older than me. October 9th. Yeah.
Yeah. The ninth. You're five days older than me. Yeah. So two different parts of the United States. But
I think that week when we were both born, the the earth kind of tilted a little bit. I think it did. They're like, "All
right, hold on. Spread this out a little bit." There was something in the water in 76. That's Yeah. Yeah. uranium.
Oh man. Yeah. So, anyhow, so so here we are, man. We're live and we're, you know, we're we're gonna be bringing all
kinds of really cool secrets and things that have been working, you know, in the industry. Uh, and you know what's cool
is John, we just got back from a major event. Um, you know, we're at the Mortgage Con event down in South Florida
and you know, again, always looking to level up. But, you know, one of the things I thought we could cover today
because, you know, this is a topic that you know a ton about uh is cageless,
right? So, I'd love to ask just right. What is cageless, man? Tell me what cageless is.
Oh, so many things. Um it originally started out like 2022 was
that weird year, right, where we went from um these crazy low rates and then
all of a sudden we saw a snowball that that nasty 8% or whatever it was and it's like the water just turned off. And
I guess I've been in it long enough. I just knew we had to shift and change. And the word that year
was pivot, which couple of tall guys that we are, we I guess we played basketball or
something, but pivot. Yeah. So my pivoting move was
all the marketing strategies I had learned from the past I knew were going to be obsolete and not going to be
working anymore. So I had to teach myself, you know, how to how to get back out
there. And um so I had this crazy notion in my mind, well, I'm going to learn from others and then I'm going to put it
back out there. But I didn't have a kickoff start. I didn't have a way to really kind of get it going, but I
wanted to create a workshop to meet other people and get other ideas. And um I think that idea was in my brain just
for a little bit. And then um if I really wanted to truly get out there and
and and and reinvent the wheel for loan officers, which is what my mission is,
is to reinvent the wheel from loan officers. I needed to bring a marketing expert along with me and a branding expert. So
I befriended a real estate agent at the time and uh she helped me kick it off.
So, she is a co-founder of Cageless with me. And Cageless is it's a workshop at
the moment. It's going to grow. It's going to get bigger. We have big dreams for it. Devin, you're a part of it.
Um, my brother just made this cool sign for me for the podcast today. I like it. I thought that was new, man.
I was looking I was like, John, got a new backdrop, man. I got a new backdrop for the today for the Warriors Giants. And um so
I said it this morning to Zetti. I feel like for 20 or almost 20 years in this
industry, I was always chasing. Yeah. And I was not being who I was and I was
else to someone else. And um and it just got to be to a point where it was
exhausting and it and it and it was depressing. And I didn't want to do that anymore. I
wanted to build a business based on around me and I didn't know how to do it. I've been in the business forever
and I didn't know how to do it. So, she helped. I don't think a lot of people do. I think a lot of people are lost and that's one of the reasons we started the
podcast and that's one of the reasons why I started Cageless and now the two coming together is going to be something really
special to help people out there and figure out what it is that they love doing. Figure out what makes them them
and then we go after it. I love it. Well, we got a we got a comment. Jessica Ortega says, "Hi." Uh,
hi Jessica. Hey, Jessica. Great to great to meet you uh virtually.
By the way, we are live. Yeah. So, don't forget this is so many. So, if anybody has a question or, you
know, wants to ask anything of John or myself, don't hesitate. Really, this is truly a live show. So, uh, we're right
here with you today. But, uh, so we start Cageless because we're looking for answers. And you've got an amazing
partner. I I you know I got a chance to spend some time with her down in Orlando. Uh Zetti Briggs, who I'm pretty
sure she may be hiding around there in the background somewhere, right? She she she stuck away for a little bit
to make sure I didn't feel stressed out. I love it, man. I love it.
She helped me get set up and all that stuff. But yeah, so we we started So what you know, so what is it about, man? Like what, you
know, how how are we helping people? What is how are we getting It's a four-step process, man. Number
one, we let's let's do let's go through a quick glance of this, man. Number one,
who are we? I mean, where where are we? Where are we in our business? Track our numbers. Who are we? Do we know in the
mortgage business? Do we know who we're doing business with right now? And do we know who we think we're doing business
with right now, but we're really not? And then um
and then basically it moves into the second phase of trying to figure out who
we are and who should we do business with because we want to attract people
that are like us and we want to lean into people that it's live.
We have a no policy. Sorry for the language
policy. you know, I got a button for him. That's fine. And um who do we want to do
business with? And um so discovering who we are is the best way to describe
number two, the second phase. So now we've figured out where are we right now
and then we go into who are we and who do we want to work with and how do we
dig deep into those relationships and then we go into the marketing aspect
and that's kind of the fun part. We give little nuggets, different things that we're doing in marketing right now that
people may not think of, but we're using those things from step number two to
really help build ideas, right? So like step number two might be
let's discover who you are. For in for one instance, we do this real estate agents. Yeah. We have an agent and uh love her dearly,
but she didn't know who she was, right? She thought she was a mom and that was
it. It's all she thought she was was a mom. Turns out she loves dancing.
She uh is a veteran. That's awesome. She loves cooking
and several other different things about her. And she didn't really discover those things about herself until people
that loved her talked to her and said, "Hey, these are the things we know about you. We don't identify you as just a
mom. We identify you as these things. So, how do we take those things
especially like ding ding ding a veteran? Yeah. Right. How do we take these things and
use that to create a level of attraction?
Right. So, and it changed her life. It changed her outlook on how she does
business. Well, let me ask you this, John, real quick, and I don't mean to interrupt, but I think it's, you know, it's important. How do how do we help her
discover that? Like I mean obviously you know we we know now you know now she was a veteran and a mom and uh but also had
the dancing skills of you know Exactly. Yeah. How do we how do we get
her to really open up and have that conversation and start to you know share what it was that made her who she was?
So this on this particular instance the exercise is if you can't sit here and
name five things about yourself find your closest friend not family member find find your closest friend and ask
them that very question who do you think I am what are the things that I love and who do you think I am and that's a
really powerful question to ask a friend sometimes because they tell you something about yourself and you're like I didn't think that yeah that's that's a
loaded question right be be prepared You know, you never know what it's like Forest
Gump says, right? It's a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. Who knows what you're going to get. But
100% ask a friend, a a close friend. Ask someone that you know you've been around
long enough and they'll tell you, you know, I guess you could ask a co-orker as well because you're around
them all the time. Yeah. You know, but that that's important in in marketing. What was the question that
we asked ourselves the other day was uh exactly if you took the name if you took the words loan officer
out of out of your biography. Yeah. what what's left,
you know, and a lot of people are that's that's the old thing when everybody goes,
you know, and they're like, man, I'm thinking and uh yeah, and that that kind
of is like eye opening for a lot of people when you do that in cageless because a lot of people are sitting there looking at it and they get
workbooks, you know, they get workbooks, we we take notes, we have all these different exercises.
So, it's a real workshop. Yeah, it's a true workshop. Well, and I want to throw something out there real quick because we're talking
about this and how she found her why. You know, we literally were just at that conference the other day and Sean Kaplan was talking about his and he was sitting
down with one of the marketing branding experts in the world. Uh Chris Doe, anybody has an ability to sit down with
him is just in for you're in a great place. If Chris is sitting next to you, right? I mean, look him up if you don't
know who he is. And he's like, Chris, you Chris like well who are you? You what are you about? And you know, same thing, right? I'm a mortgage guy, right?
And he's like, "No, no, no. Who are you?" Like, "What do people know you for?" And he said, ' It was about that time somebody walked by behind him and
they're like, "Hey, Cap. We're running the lunch." And he's like, "What's that? What's that?" He's like, "Oh, we're
going to go to lunch later." He's like, "No, no, no. What's Cap, right?" And he's like, "That's what they call me. They've been calling me that since I was
a kid. I'm Cap, right?" He's like, "That's your brand. Like, that's who you are." So, that's very true. And that's more about branding. But, you
know, at the end of the day, like that's what we're talking about here is number one, who are you as a person? How do people know you? And then to develop the
brand, who have you always been? You know, John, you're Big John Hinks, man. Like, that's right. Big John. That's who you are, right?
Yeah. Sloan's Big John's got your back. I like it. It I had to rewrite it. The other one
was Big John's right behind you. And it freaked people out.
But um John's got your back. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, I like it.
Well, you know, it it's I love the workshop because it's not it's not one
of those workshops where like these are the activities you have to do in order to succeed and if you want to double
your numbers and all that kind of stuff. The number of calls you make and all that kind of stuff does have a very
powerful impact in your business 100%. But you're never going to pick up the phone and do that if you don't believe
in what you're doing. Amen. So, so, so casual workshop should be done first and figuring out who you
are and what you believe in doing and having confidence in it. You know, I I've used to pick up the phone nervous
and scared and now when I pick up the phone, I can't wait because I'm actually
calling with value. Yeah. And uh that's part of the cool things that we do on a regular basis that
provides value so that people don't are not scared to pick up the phone. I love that. You know, something else
that happened. I don't know if you know if anybody's watching and we've got a few people that are on right now, but uh when you said uh I love the cageless
workshop. Uh you you lit up, man. Like you smiled. You know, it it it's awesome because what I can tell, you know, just
in that that one moment is how much joy it brings you to help others, right? Uh this is something that's special for
you, man. It is, man. been I mean I've been highest highs, lowest lows and um
it's really cool to see people kind of change their business and who they are when you do it. So I I get it I get a
kick out of it and um I really feed into it when we invite people to these workshops which we're still trying to
figure out how to like get the word out because everybody's so guarded. Everybody's so
like oh they're going to try to recruit me or uh what's happening here? are they going to sell me something, you know?
And it's really just a workshop like why are you doing this? And I'm like I want more friends. I need more friends in
this business. So if we create this cool network of loan officers where and real estate agents and we're
all kicking ideas with each other and we're growing together. I mean that's all I want because that's just going to
make my branch and my company better and myself better. So like the hard part's always calling
people and they're always like there's got to be a catch. So now I'm like I'm like I'm like saying like no dude I
actually need you there. Like please come. I need your help to show up to my event. So
it's funny you say that. I remember you know and this is completely off topic but I remember when I was uh doing a
streamline program and we were crediting back escrow and doing some really cool things with it to help the clients.
And you know basically when we'd explain it to the client they would literally they always go well how are you doing
this? everybody else can't do these streamlined things and and you you guys can and you're doing stuff that I've never heard of before like what are you
doing right and it was the same thing it's like where's the catch right and when I tried to explain it to them like when I would talk they'd literally then
and then we was like oh that's it that's the catch and it wasn't a catch right it was just hey there's premium inside of the rates that gives us the ability to
do these things and make it flexible so what we had to learn was is that we had to really simplify it so when they
said so why are you able to do we want your servicing
and It just took the complication out of it and all of a sudden they're like oh okay cool this sounds great I'll sign right
here right but uh you're right people are right now they're looking for the you know they're looking for the cell
like what is it that you want from me John uh not you know hey this is a community and we're trying to help each
other and I think that's because so many people lack that abundance mindset uh because there's not a lot of people in
sales that have it for years and years and years it's like these are my secrets nobody can know how to do them except
for me and the people that work with me and if you don't work with me, you're dead to me, right?
And people don't understand that concept of when we're growing, we're growing together. And when you bring, it's like
a potluck dinner, man. You know, like you go to church on Sunday and you bring the potluck and John's got the casserole
and I've got the beans and somebody else has got the, you know, the rice dish and that amazing apple pie that Susie brings
every time, you know. And that's exactly what it is, right? I gotta write that down, dude.
Like the workshop really is like a potluck dinner and everybody brings something different because we always
pull a nugget out of them before we give a nugget to them. Yeah. And and if if if I change the word
nugget to potatoes, I mean that might be even better because I can like
you know that's actually really cool. That might be in my new script when I explain it to people. It's a potluck
dinner of loan officers. Everybody brings something different. workshop and real estate agents and real estate agents and it's a
four-step process to get all the way to the end. So number one was track
tracking like where are we who we are where do we want to be we do a little
bit of number stuff we talk a little bit I mean like let's be real life changing that's your road map yeah
road map your road map and then number two you know who are we
branding like find out who we are so that on steps number three and number
four we can lean into it you know so number three is little fun
nuggets. That's when we get to talk about the cool things, acknowledgement cards and social media posts and AI and
all the different things we can use to implement our marketing. It makes your life so much easier because we find you
you you end up finding the things that you're comfortable with. Yeah. And then step number four is discipline
and time. So this is the cageless part. This is in order to truly be cageless,
how much of your time a day do you need to be doing these activities? Yeah. And to change your business and what
does that look like? So, we go over blocking your time, uh, prioritizing
your time, what does your team look like so that you have the time to do these
things. Okay. And then how do you find balance in all of those? Which is really what
cageless is is to live a mortgage loan loan officer or real estate life where
you're not chasing and your business is not running you. Right? So that's that's
where at the end I'm hoping everybody that attends the workshop is
like almost in tears going I've been doing this wrong for a long time. Well, I've seen it. I mean, I've seen it
firsthand, right? You know, and and then and then when the transformation takes place because I think a lot of people
go, man, but how can I, you know, truly live, you know, with within time parameters? And and when you break it
down and you show them, you know, how you can have the green time and the red time and where you're focused on in each
one of those segments and how you can actually put that into an actual plan, that's mind-blowing because we've been
in again, I've been in this for 23 years. You're you're right maybe 24 now, 24 years. And you're right right behind
me at 22 years. That's not how it's always been. You know, it's it's for a lot of us it's been a chaotic lifestyle.
We love it. Some of us are we love the chaos, right? We're problem solvers is by nature. That's what we are. But man,
sometimes we can't solve our own problem. And a lot of the times the biggest problem is is that we just don't
have a methodical way of doing things that gives us time back to spend with our families so that we can truly enjoy
the ride. And this is one thing I talk about all the time, John, is that if you're not enjoying the ride,
man, you got to do something different. You got to do something different because we're only here for a limited
period of time. And if you're not enjoying every second of it, you got to find a different way. And I
think that's what cageless is about, right? Is to help people find that freedom
of getting out of the cage and finding a better way.
That's it. It it that's exactly it, man. I mean, I was having a conversation with uh one
of my loan officers, Kelly Taylor, at mortgage. Love, Kelly. Love Kelly. And there was a group of us sitting around a table and
we were having a conversation with her and I didn't mention it to her but the the problems that she was discussing
with us were so much different than the problems she was discussing with us a year ago.
The problems that she's discussing now was like I'm not funneling my business correctly. I've got too much stuff
coming in and um I'm I'm really worried that I'm going to work past 5:30 and you
know like all those type of things. and she's how do I communicate with my team
more efficiently because she's so damn nice, you know? She's just so the way she talks to people, you feel like
you're going to rule the world because she's so nice. Almost makes me want to cry. She she's
so nice. So she's like, how do I communicate with my team that, you know, I want to make sure that we do this correctly and like those problems
were so different than they were a year ago where she was like, I can't get to two closings a month. I need to do this.
and she had a lot of stuff going on in her world and so she executes cageless.
Um it's kind of cool the workshop that we created uh three years ago. Uh my
partner Zetti, she grew her business to where she has 26 agents and they all implement Cageless, right?
And now she's like top 5% her brokerage is like top 5% in the in the in the city
or in our little MLS. Then one of the agents that Kelly brought to one of the
events open her own brokerage implementing the same stuff. And now I'm
watching both of these brokerages blow up like going huge and then getting better, bigger and better. And then I'm
watching these other loan officers that are implementing it. I mean, so many stories are being created and and I'm
thankful that the mortgage giants, our little podcast is going to be able to share those stories in the future. I love that, man. I absolutely love it.
And you know, that's the one thing a lot of the times people hear about the coaching programs, but they don't always see is the success stories behind it,
right? You know, does this really work? Is there somebody that's actually taking this and putting it to action and
actually having the results that are being promised? And you've got, you know, in fact, we should bring some of
those people on the podcast and let them share their stories as to how they started and where they were lost and how
they utilized this system and this program to get there. And and so one thing I'd love to do and I'm running it
about across the bottom of the screen, but you're going to be doing some live events and I know you know at some point in time I'm going to be joining you on some of these live events as well, but
these are not just live on the web. These are going to be live in person, right? So talk a little bit about that.
Like what is the game plan for Cageless this year? Uh what what is that going to look like?
So right now we have I think six scheduled. Um but they're all in person.
So we're going to the actual city to do to do that. I like the in-person feel.
Yeah. But we are going to begin executing some virtual classes as well so that you know
people that are not able to get to those cities or want to be in that area can participate. It'll have a little bit of
a different feel. You know I'm an inerson guy. I like I do I like you know I like ending cages and
we're like all right who wants to go have lunch? You know what I mean? So I mean food but uh
food feed us feed us. mortgage giants. February 18th, we're in Greensboro and
then we're going to be in Raleigh the very next day. And then in March, we're going to do Greenville and Charleston,
South Carolina. And then in April, we're going to do Charlotte. And then in May,
we're going to do Johnson City and Knoxville, Tennessee. And um uh we're
we're open to more areas. I know Nashville's coming and I know we have Orlando coming. Some folks down in
Florida have asked us to come down there. So, we're going to do Orlando and we're trying to come out here to Dallas, too.
Uh I was about to say Dallas is is going to be on it, but I think Dallas, one of our dreams, Devin, is to do a big big
event, like a two-day event. And Dallas is going to be probably the location we'll
pick Dallas and one other location, possibly maybe Charlotte, where we have a big big event. And um that's where
we're really going to get down and dirty with it and have experts in different fields come in and and really give
different perspectives, but I think they'll want those perspectives to be outside of the mortgage market and
outside of the real estate market. Different perspectives. I love that. Love that. Well, and and guys, you're
seeing it run across the bottom of the screen, but if you're, you know, if you're watching or if you're watching this later and you're like, "Man, I'd
love to see about those events or I'd love to get on the wait list uh for the webinar stuff that's going to be coming
out, just go to the website uh bcageelist.com. Uh bkageless.com and you
can find uh access to jump right on a wait list, right? And, you know, may we
maybe come to a city near you soon. Uh until then, you can pop on the podcast and see us, you know, every week. Uh,
the plan for this one is every Friday at 2 PM Eastern, 1 PM Central. You can
catch John and I here. Um, or like I said, jump on the wait list or go join one of the face-toface events. Uh, John
will be there and uh, I'll be at some of these as well. In addition to that, if you can't get enough,
we also do a live show uh, Monday, I'm sorry, Tuesday and Thursday, 9:00 a.m.
Eastern, 8 a.m. Central. And that's the mlolive.com. Um that's hosted by Scotty Hudsmith. Uh
I'm on the show, John's on the show, Coach Rick Kanig, and we're bringing in top tier uh people every single week uh
to share things, not to mention just the cool toys uh that Scott's been building. I might have built a few cool toys, too,
that we're giving away for free um just to help level up people in the industry. You know, again, you know, we lead with
an abundance mindset. There's no tricks or gimmicks here. uh we just want to help you get better and build a
community of people that can help each other with that potluck, right? And show up with those special ingredients when
mixed all together uh just make for an amazing amazing business. And that's I
mean I I I like to say this, John, because I think for a few years there, this industry wasn't fun for a lot of
people and we're trying to make it mortgage fun again, right? Like we want to make it fun to be in the industry. We
want to make it fun for our clients and uh we want to grow each other and the people that are around us, you know, to
uh to just create great successes and um also provide amazing service, right? I think it's important to make sure that
we look at who our clients are, our agents and our borrowers that are out there that want to know who could I trust, right? Who can I trust? Who's the
right person to lean into? And what's that experience going to look like? So,
I love fun. your whole your whole everything is better when you're having fun. The way you talk to people.
Yeah. The way you feel when you're at work. You get more stuff done when you're having fun. I just fun. I like that
word. Well, guys, I think uh this is probably
going to close it out. John, any closing statements uh before we wrap up today?
No, man. I I I'm excited for the mortgage giants. What a great Yeah, I'm
going to give you all credit on that logo. Looks cool. I can't wait for the t-shirts. That's going to be
They're coming. They're coming, bro. I'm very excited to do this with you. That's my closing statement, my man. My man. Well, I'm pumped to do
this, too. And I'm pumped to bring all kinds of value to the folks that take the time to tune in. We have to give away some free t-shirts. Hey, if you'd
like the idea of getting a free t-shirt, comment, let us know, right? Let us know. In fact, I'll tell you, why don't
we do this? If you want a free t-shirt, um, go over to John's page, um, on, uh,
let's, since I have your Insta, let's just do Instas today. Go over to John's page at BigJoh Hanks on Instagram and
follow John and then go over to my page on Insta, which is pretty simple. It's just my name, Devin Dubuc. Okay? Uh,
follow me and then just mark in the comments t-shirt and if you follow it on
both pages, we'll put you into a drawing and we'll send out a t-shirt. So, uh,
love to get you guys, uh, back here and, uh, love to to, uh, to show you what what John and I want to bring to this
industry. So, thank you guys so much for tuning in. John, let's let's have fun, man. Let's keep having fun.
Love it. All right, guys. Well, we will catch you on the next one. We're your mortgage
giants. I'm Devin Dubuc. I'm John Hinks.
Heat up here.