00:06I'm Allison LaForgia, and I'm in Austin, Texas, sitting down with Kelly Kleinbaugh,
00:11the Executive Vice President of Sales and Strategy at LendingPad. Kelly, thank you for
00:15joining me today. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to have you. And I want to start
00:21with your journey in the mortgage industry. How has the role of technology evolved as you've
00:28gone through different market cycles? So it's been a long journey, 23 years. When I first started
00:35visiting lenders back 23 years ago, mortgage loan files were stacked on desks, and the way information
00:43got moved between files was passing it around cubicles. So obviously, you know, that has changed.
00:50The digital innovation has come. And so now our clients today can do with AI tools, with the
00:59internet, they can do everything, collaborate. You can have a loan officer in Texas, and you can have
01:05a processor in New York, and they can work in real time on those files. So it just gets those
01:10files
01:10processed faster, faster approval, and of course, what every lender wants, faster funding.
01:16Faster, you have more digitization. It's interesting how the pace of things has changed.
01:22It really is. Everything is just evolving so much quicker. You know, I think one of the things that,
01:29as I remember, what would tend to drive technology and innovation would be some sort of a mortgage
01:36market crisis or some sort of new regulatory. And that's when everybody get really interested
01:41in innovation, and it would die off. But now, I think what really is driving it is the borrower
01:47journey. And the borrowers are expecting a better experience. They want a seamless experience,
01:52and they want a transparent experience. I love that you mentioned that because I'd really like
01:58your stance when you look at today's lending environment. What do you think that lenders
02:04should be prioritizing right now to stay competitive? I think the number one thing is agility.
02:11They have to have agility. They have to be able to pivot. When products change or there's something
02:18else that they see they could be interested in for their business, they need to be able to make those
02:24strategic business decisions. And what I really have seen over the years, they used to set time
02:30aside to go back and read reports from last week and last month. And what's really changing with
02:36technology like we build at LendingPad today is just real-time data analytics where they can look
02:41ahead and they can see those trends happening in real time. Now, there's a lot of conversation
02:47in the mortgage industry right now around efficiency. But in practice, that can mean a lot of different
02:53things. Yes. Yes. How do you define true operational efficiency for lenders? Well, let's talk about what
03:00it's not, right? It's not always about speed and it's not about cost cutting. What it's really about is
03:07identifying those redundant tasks that are happening every day, using automation, again, anticipating what
03:16that, looking at the bar experience. But when you can, you can reduce the friction with your internal staff.
03:24One of the things that really happens is we find that the staff can then take time and actually focus
03:31back on those borrowers, their customers. That's what's going to really drive referrals back to their
03:36business. So I think that is one of the most important things that lenders have to really look
03:43like is keeping that morale up with your staff because that just translates down to the market.
03:49To your point earlier that you raised about borrower expectations changing, it's more important than
03:55ever to have a really good experience. Yes, it really is. Well, and lenders though, that's the
04:00other important thing about technology. You want high tech, but it has to be affordable to fit in
04:06their business. They want to have all the same advantages as the big banks do. And LendingPad has really
04:12positioned itself as a more collaborative, connected technology partner. And I love that you guys
04:18approach it genuinely as a partnership. Yep. How important is that concept of collaboration?
04:25You know, it's really, collaboration is the heart of our business. We really start internally with our
04:32business, with our teams. It's really important. We know that if we can collaborate across products,
04:38it's not about deciding what you want to build and then having it built and seeing how it works.
04:42We have our product team, development teams, our project managers work across all of our, especially
04:49our big rollouts, all the way from the beginning to the end. And then you have to have that external
04:54collaboration with your clients because you have to let them know ahead of what's coming so they can
05:01prepare for it and train for it. And then after that, you have to be available there to help them
05:06to collaborate with them and make sure that they're using it. So you just mentioned how key that
05:13collaboration was. So clearly there's a lot of conversation and a lot of close work that's
05:18happening with lenders. From your experience, what does a strong technology partnership look like,
05:24not just at implementation, but over time as the business evolves?
05:30You know, it, it's really the whole sales cycle. And, and because I've been doing this for more
05:35than 20 years and because I've worked with customer companies that I've been around for 20 years,
05:42it really starts, you know, first of all, collaboration isn't something that you just
05:47say you're going to do it. It takes time with each client. Every, every company has its own
05:52personality. So you get to know each other, you collaborate, but it truly starts at the sales cycle,
05:57really discovering what that lender is trying to change, understanding those processes,
06:03and then over time, helping them evolve to keep problem solving for things that are happening.
06:08Now, all of this is fantastic, but there's a key piece of technology collaboration after
06:15implementation that we have to address. And that is adoption. Oh yes. Adoption and visibility.
06:22Their adoption and visibility are where technology either succeeds or it fails. How do you approach
06:30meaningful engagement and adoption after implementation? And there's one missing word.
06:36The other word is usability. Usability. And so adoption, obviously, again, just, you know,
06:44from the last question, adoption comes because you're communicating ahead and then making sure you're
06:50there to support the customers after. But when you implement it, it has to be highly usable from
06:55the beginning. It has to be transparent. It has to be really seamless for your users. And so that's
07:01where a lot of work has to go into how each component is developed. And it's kind of like a
07:07relay race,
07:08right? When you're, from our standpoint, we, we see the race and we hand something off to our customers to
07:15go use it. But we also kind of have to stay and look at that curve ahead and kind of,
07:20and how we're
07:21going to help them get to that next spot. So speaking of the curve ahead, where do you see
07:27opportunities for lenders to rethink their approach to origination? And how is LendingPad helping its
07:35partners prepare for what's next in the industry? Well, the one buzzword we left out of all this is
07:40the one we hear, AI, right? And so, you know, we're, we're rethinking that too. And we have been
07:48for quite some time at LendingPad. So we're leveraging a lot of AI tools that are really
07:54helping changing on really how we're developing our software. The other thing that we're looking
07:59ahead to is performance, because a lot of legacy systems don't think far enough ahead in their
08:07platforms that once everybody wants to go out and sign up a lot of lenders on their platform.
08:12But if those platforms from a performance basis can't do that, and you're not using the latest
08:17technology, it's not the, it's not the sexy things to talk about in the sales cycle with a lender,
08:23what you're doing, but is the important foundation of our system to make sure that we're looking ahead
08:2810 years from now that, so we can support the customers from a performance standpoint.
08:32And then our other thing that we're always have continued to do is really engage mortgage people
08:38in our technology business. So all of our staff, whether it's support or implementation or relationship
08:46account management, all have mortgage backgrounds. Our, our employees have sat in the same seats where
08:53our customers have been. That is fantastic. And I didn't know that Kelly was going to say this.
08:57It's, it's fantastic because the way that you approach industry problems when you've transacted
09:04is very different than when you don't have transactional experience. Yes. It gives you a
09:08wealth of knowledge that is hard one. Yes. Well, you know, there's, you know, we really take pride in
09:16the fact at LendingPad that our, all of our support functions with our clients all the way through to
09:21relationship. Everybody is U S based. They've all done a, they've all done mortgages, um, you know,
09:28residential mortgages. So it's an expertise that we rely on and count on. Well, Kelly, thank you so much
09:34for taking me through what LendingPad is up to. I can't wait to see what's next. Oh, we can too.
09:38Thank
09:39you so much for having us. It's a great experience. You guys have done a great job. Thank you so
09:43much
09:43for being here. Yeah. Thank you.
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