The mortgage industry loves to chase shiny objects. AI is the latest one. But Josh Friend is focused on keeping the customer first while integrating the latest technology innovations into the InSellerate tech stack. In this episode of Ten Minute Talks, Josh explains to Allison LaForgia that, despite AI hype, the conversation hasn’t changed: it’s still centered on understanding people better than your competitors do.
Friend connects the dots between leadership, technology and customer experience, going deeper than buzzwords on how AI is actually being used to improve loan officer performance, accelerate decision-making, and raise expectations across teams. The takeaway is hard to ignore: the bar is going up and leadership has to evolve with it.
#MortgageTech #BorrowerEngagement #AIinFinance #LeadershipInsights
Friend connects the dots between leadership, technology and customer experience, going deeper than buzzwords on how AI is actually being used to improve loan officer performance, accelerate decision-making, and raise expectations across teams. The takeaway is hard to ignore: the bar is going up and leadership has to evolve with it.
#MortgageTech #BorrowerEngagement #AIinFinance #LeadershipInsights
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NewsTranscript
00:10I'm Allison LaForgia, and on this episode of 10 Minute Talks, I'm sitting down with
00:16Ancelerate's founder and CEO, Josh Friend. Josh, thank you for joining me today.
00:21Allison, thanks for having me. Glad to be on.
00:23So I want to start with a question going back to when you founded Ancelerate in 2013,
00:33and you started with a focus on transforming borrower engagement. How has your leadership
00:40philosophy evolved as you've gone through several different mortgage cycles, and we've seen the
00:47market go through various shifts? Yeah, I mean, it's evolved really kind of even before then.
00:55You know, I started the mortgage industry in 1999, and even, I mean, as you guys know, 2008,
01:00there was a major market shift. But even in between there, there was ups and downs. And
01:05what I realized was there's always a financial product that's helping the consumers.
01:11So in any market, there's always going to be lenders and companies that are doing well.
01:16So it's really understanding under, you know, what does the market need? What do consumers need?
01:22Where are those niches? And how do you really best serve them? So it's really just, you know,
01:26really paying attention to, you know, the business that we're in. You know, we're in the financial,
01:31mortgage lenders are in the financial services business. That's always been a big thing. And what
01:36I thought about is, you know, you're in service business. So if you, I always say it was,
01:39if you give a lot of service, you make a lot of money. You give a little bit of service,
01:43you make a little bit of money. It's really about understanding what that service is,
01:47and how do you serve borrowers? And how do you meet them with their needs?
01:50I want to dig in a little bit more to something you just mentioned with your experience. You came
01:57up through the ranks as a loan officer and operator before becoming a technology CEO. How does that
02:03frontline experience still shape the way that you lead teams and make strategic decisions?
02:09Yeah, really, it's been foundational to who we're as a company. I mean, I originally built
02:14the Encelerate platform for myself, it wasn't for anyone else to use. So it was, how do I help my
02:20loan officers, my team do better? And I think what I, you know, one of the philosophies I have is
02:26employees don't make mistakes, managers do. So really, what you're looking at is, if you have
02:32employees aren't able to use the systems, then you need to design a system differently. So very early on,
02:37it was really fundamentally, how do I get something that my people can actually use?
02:42Not what I think they can use or tell them what they should use, but like, let me actually watch
02:46them in the real world. Because if I turned out a piece of software, and it wasn't getting used, I
02:50could, you know, scream all day long, use it. But that wasn't actually going to move the needle.
02:55Like how, you know, what do we do to actually get people to make them use it? So foundationally,
03:00we understand the problems. And I think that's what's really made Encelerate different in the mortgage
03:04spaces, we can come down and sit down and go, Okay, what are you trying to do differently in
03:08yourselves for or your marketing team or with the operations team? And then here's how you would just
03:14how you use the software to make that happen. And again, it's a service. You know, we're in software
03:19as a, you know, SaaS software as a service business. So, again, we're consultants, we're in the service
03:25business. And how do we help lenders do what we'd like to say, our tagline is, how do we help
03:29lenders
03:30close more loans? Foundationally, that's our goal is how do we help you close more loans?
03:34How has that evolved even as you've branched out into the new frontier, which is AI?
03:42Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. Really, you know, foundationally, you know, our logo has been
03:48we help lenders close more loans. So AI is just one of those tools that helps lenders close more loans.
03:53So we were not stuck in this idea that we're a CRM company or a marketing company,
03:58we're in a company, we're in a business to help lenders close more loans. And we have,
04:01we use technology to do that. So obviously, AI is one of those things that is foundationally,
04:07just very transformationally in all industries, because there's not an industry, it's not touching.
04:12And now if you use AI, and everyone is using AI, you realize this is something that's really going to
04:16change, just not the mortgage industry, but just our lives in general. So that's what we developed,
04:22Athena, for example. Athena is our AI call platform, listens to calls, makes calls,
04:28calls, coaches, loan officers, training loan officers, has really foundationally around,
04:32hey, our lenders are sitting there managing loan officers through our technology.
04:36They're using our technology to communicate to their borrowers better. They're using our technology
04:40to know who to train, how to train. What if we could use AI to do that for them?
04:45And that's what AI really has done for us is really, you know, make people better at their jobs.
04:50Now, we've mentioned some of the changes that the industry has gone through. And there's been
04:57several different cycles that you've gone through just since Incelerate was founded,
05:02not even counting your prior experience, actually, when you're looking at the loan officer and
05:09operating piece of it. I want to ask, what's one leadership belief that you've had to maybe unlearn,
05:15or perhaps even fundamentally rethink as you've gone through some of these shifts and changes as
05:22the industry has evolved? It's really been around just the idea of how do you serve your people
05:32better? I said a little earlier, you know, that I heard this a long time ago, Dr. Damond was a
05:40business philosopher, wrote many books, a lot of colleges use his philosophy to teach. And he had
05:46a saying where managers don't, employees don't make mistakes, managers make mistakes.
05:51So really trying to understand, okay, what does that really mean? And it really kind of developed
05:56that not just with my own team, but with other teams. If someone's having a hard time using our
06:00software or not getting what they need out of it, you know, it's not, hey, we built it to do
06:06the right
06:07thing. It's, all right, so why is this not working for you? Fundamentally, right? We're in the service
06:13business. And this is with everything, right? You have to constantly think about what you're doing.
06:18Is it really giving the service that someone wants to have? And if it's not, how do you fix it?
06:23And it
06:23changes drastically, right? There's, you know, there's always the shiny bell out there someone
06:28wants the little toys, but what is actually going to move the needle and really listening and
06:32understand that, which is really something that, you know, from whether you're a lender,
06:36really listening to your customer, right? So people aren't calling in to get a refinance
06:42because a 6% sounds better than a 7%. They want to talk to you because a 6% may
06:48help them save money.
06:50Right? They're looking, they're calling you to buy a house, not because buying a house,
06:53it seems fun. They're looking to buy a house. So they want to make a home out of it. They're
06:56wondering if it's going to be a good investment for them. So it's how do you listen to your people?
07:01How do you use that in, you know, a practical sense and just really provide service? It really
07:06comes down to service. We're in the financial services business. If you're a lender and I'm
07:11in the software as a service business as a technology provider, I'm trying to provide someone a service.
07:16You're not calling me or look, we're using our company because you want to use technology.
07:20You're using our software because you want a result. You want something to work in the end. You
07:25want more customers. You want happier customers. You want to train your people better. You want to
07:29communicate better. That's why you're using our software, not because it's fun to use software,
07:32because it's not fun to use software. The software can make your life easier. It gives you a service,
07:38an outcome. So you're looking for an outcome. Consumers are looking for an outcome. They're
07:40looking to save money, build wealth, build a home, right? Understanding what people are actually
07:45needing. That's really what we really leaned into is understanding what are people really asking for.
07:50Now, the company has grown so much since you founded it. I mean, even looking at all of the
07:57different options and services that you provide, how have you really taken that philosophy and that
08:05emphasis over the customer experience and long-term borrower relationships and translated that
08:12philosophy internally when you look to build culture, accountability, and performance across the
08:18organization. Yeah. I mean, I just recently, we had one of our company calls and we really just
08:24discussed, it's the same thing. What are we trying to do, right? I think that for the mortgage industry,
08:30you have an opportunity to help people with the average person's largest financial transaction.
08:37Their biggest financial investment is going to be a home. So for most people, this is one of the
08:43most core things they have to their financial future, how they feel about themselves. So internally
08:48understanding, hey, we're in the business right now to help our lenders win, help our lenders serve
08:56their customers better. And so it's really just kind of bringing back why we're doing what we're doing.
09:01We're not in this business to sell more software. We're in this business to help people win or help
09:06in order to help them win, they have to serve their customers better. So it's really just fundamentally
09:09understand why are we doing what we're doing, right? There's, you know, which is great.
09:14There's a lot of industries, you may be doing things that, you know, don't have such an impact,
09:17but if you really think about it, you know, if you're in the mortgage industry, you really do have
09:22the biggest insight to a customer's financial picture. More so than like, I have a financial planner.
09:29My financial planner knows a lot about me, but he does not know my monthly debts versus my income
09:34versus all my savings accounts versus what my ratios are. He doesn't, he doesn't ask those
09:39things. If you're a lender, you know everything about someone's financial picture. So we are really
09:44in this place to really serve customers. So really getting excited about that. And inside the culture
09:49is making sure all my team knows. If you're a programmer, you may not talk to our customers,
09:54but understand that they're there trying to serve people. And it's something that we can be excited
10:00about and feel good about. I think that that's such a fantastic point that we lose sight of so
10:06often as an industry. And it's so refreshing to hear your emphasis on that, not just in how you're
10:15looking at growing, but how you look at building your teams and what you're trying to translate as
10:20a philosophy, because at the end of the day, we're serving people. And the experience that these people
10:26have, to your point, it's the highest level of transparency that you pretty much have in the
10:33financial arena. So it can, it's a really important process to deliver a really great experience.
10:40Yeah. And great advice. I mean, really consult it. I think if you're, you know, if you're a lender,
10:46how do you help your people really be a financial consultant, if you will? I mean, again, like going
10:52back to my financial planner, he's never looked at my credit report, right? But my last time I did a
10:58loan, that loan officer saw my credit report, they saw everything in one picture. So we really are in
11:04a position to really do a lot of good for our customers and give them great advice, really be
11:08able to paint a picture of how they can, you know, do better, how they can, you know, save up
11:12for the
11:13future, how they can pass their wealth to their children, how they can pay off debt, how they can,
11:17you know, take that vacation they've always wanted to take, whatever it is they're trying to gain,
11:21we are in a position to help them do that. Now, I have to end with a question talking
11:27about AI and automation. It would not be a housing wire interview if we didn't have that forward
11:32looking gaze. And we know that AI and automation are poised to reshape how lenders operate and engage
11:40with borrowers. You've raised some points about how you're approaching this earlier. How has this shift
11:46towards AI and automation changed your own leadership style, and specifically in how you
11:53think about decision making, team structure, and where human expertise still matters most?
11:59Yeah, it's really, I mean, foundationally, just internally with our own organization,
12:06it's completely changed how we develop software. I can say that for right, right out the gate, like,
12:11our ability to design software faster and more software, it's, it's, you know, I'm a technologist,
12:17I have been for years. It's still, I look at it, and I'm amazed, and I'm wow, like, I can't
12:22believe this
12:22is actually, we're able to create new products so quickly. So, for me, it's understanding that
12:28the expectation for all the teams, I expect more out of them. So, you know, I expect much more
12:37efficiency, much more better, higher quality of work than, than before, because you can use AI tools
12:43to assist you in your job, right? So it's, how do you use that to leverage yourself and do your
12:49job
12:50better? Which again, is what people are trying to do in the mortgage industry. If you're a lender,
12:54how do I use AI to make better decisions? So now I can do research at scale much faster than
13:01I was able
13:01to before, right? I, so my expectation is I should be in our team should be more informed,
13:07we should have more ideas, we should have better thorough plans laid out of how we want to attack
13:13or solve a problem. So the expectations are, you know, a one person team, if you will, should be able
13:20to do what maybe a 10 person team, I would expect it out of them a year ago. And I
13:24think lenders should
13:25look at, well, if that's how the mortgage industry or the technology industry is changing, I should
13:31look at my loan officers, my processors, my underwriters, I should be looking at them to be
13:36able to have a five, 10 X, you know, there's going to be a day, I think the average loan
13:40officer does,
13:41I don't know what the number is today, maybe somewhere between two to four loans a month,
13:44right? It's not super high, but there'll be a day where the average loan officer is going to be doing
13:4920 to 30 loans a month. And the average underwriter is going to touch two or 300 loans versus the
13:5530
13:55or 40 they do a month right now. Same with processors. So I think it's our expectations
13:59need to be, our teams will do a lot more and be a lot more efficient. So how do we
14:05get there, right?
14:05How to obviously AI are the tools that are helping us get there. Well, Josh, thank you so much for
14:10sitting down with me on this episode of 10 Minute Talks. For our audience, you can connect with Josh at
14:15the link below.
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