Home & Heart: Inspiring stories of mortgage excellence

Fergal McAlinden  00:00:18 

All right, well hello again. Thanks for joining us on another edition of CMP talk. I'm Fergal McAlinden, news editor over here at CMP. Behind every deal in the mortgage industry is a real story that showcases how mortgage professionals are helping shape the lives of their clients, a truth that strongly influenced MCAN home and it's view that every story begins at home. Today we're joined by MCAN home's, Regional Director of Sales, Ryan White, and business development manager, Harriet Cammayo, to tell us a little bit more about that philosophy, how the company's work is impacting Canadians, and of course, its overall approach to the mortgage broker community. Ryan and Harriet, it is great to have you both with us today. How was everything with you? 

Ryan White & Harriet Cammayo  00:00:56 

Very good, thank you Fergal. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:00:58 

Yeah, thanks to you both for joining us. I'm really looking forward to the discussion. I mean, let's start maybe by discussing your overall approach to brokering network partnerships and client relationships. I mean, what's your philosophy? And how do you manage those relationships?  

Harriet Cammayo  00:01:10 

Yep, so this is my favorite question. Because as a BDM, we actually cultivate foundational business relationships with our broker partners. So in a sense, we're we are stewards, because we do represent our partners as an extension of their brand, and their business. So we do try to manage expectations on that side of the business. But we also facilitate through ops towards working in solution. So I think it's really important to also have a good working relationships with your internal team, because it just essentially just makes, you know, more seamless experience for everyone really working on the deal. So really, truly takes a village to make it all happen. 

Ryan White  00:01:48 

At MCAN we really do believe in trust, communication, empathy, and accountability, both for our internal teams and our external partners to Harriet's point our brokers, in our business partners, we have to work together so that we haven't successful experience, we really do want to discuss the deals upfront with our brokers to make sure that there's a fit here that we're not wasting their time, the clients time or underwriting time. The more we know up front from our brokers, the closer we work together with them, the better success we're going to have at the end. And really here we truly believe like send it in, is not a line we like using, we'd like to dig deep, make sure there's a good fit and make sure that we utilize everyone's time. 

Harriet Cammayo  00:02:29 

Yeah, and I think the key to also MCANs long term success is our culture and our service, which obviously we are very grateful and honored to be recognized for so MCAN was recently just placed one of Canada's top employers and best employers to work for women in 2024. So we have a few nominations that's upcoming in the industry awards. And Ryan is too humble to say but he is also one of the two members of our team to be nominated for BDM of the year. So we are very proud of him and MCAN for this achievement because it really does show the true value of what we're here to do. As BDMS.  

Ryan White  00:03:10 

Our underwriter also got one of our underwriters also got nominated for Best underwriter of the year as well at the CMA Org's gazelle. We've been constantly voted as a great place to work through the last, I think three or four years now. And it really is a family feel here. It's a small team, we work together to get the deals done and best support our brokers and their clients.  

Fergal McAlinden  00:03:34 

You know, that culture that you mentioned, is really shining through. And I mentioned in my intro, the idea of every story begins at home, that's become a really strong tagline for MCAN, can you tell us about the story behind that? And maybe the overall message that you want to put across with that tagline? 

Ryan White  00:03:50 

Absolutely. We're really focused on the three P's people, purpose and performance. Those aren't just talking points to us. These are the pillars that we live through to bring life to the stories that we get to share on a daily basis. It really cuts through all the noise. And you know, lending isn't lending isn't easy. So we really want to have that, that purpose and come through on performance with good people. The current economic environment is really tough on the average Canadian and we have real world solutions to help the clients navigate through the storm. That can be either great rates when they're buying their first home, or possibly extended ratios or contributory income on our alternative side to help clients to stay in their home. It's really all about having solutions that fit for Canadians and help brokers help their clients. 

Harriet Cammayo  00:04:41 

Yeah. And so we actually really incorporate the client stories into our partner presentations into our product content to highlight the people really, who's behind the deal and what is the main reason for why we do this. So we're starting to feature our partners as well as across digital channels because they're, they're the real heroes to the clients. So our mortgage brokers have access and experience to most Canadian needs to guide them towards the right solution. So when our partners choose MCAN for a deal, we try to celebrate that. So this is essentially our way of highlighting that. And highlighting that. 

Ryan White  00:05:18 

And on top of that, we really like to take it to the next level, we we really, truly believe in that win win win methodology. So the broker wins, the client wins, MCAN wins, when we're all working together, we tie that into what we do, it's pretty unique at MCAN and I will really do like to highlight it is our, our check presentations in our icon program, to give it a real feeling of giving back to the community back to the clients. I'm one of the faces of the program, I love it, we actually are organizing a grand prize giveaway with one of our partner brokerages with Brock capital, who won the $25,000 grand prize draw of free mortgage payments. So we're, we threw a party together, we brought all the clients in, we gave away a bunch of free mortgage payments to all the clients and, and really like meeting the actual end families, hearing the impact that it had on you on their life, just in general, it's, it's a really fun and heartwarming thing we do. And we really just try to tie everything back to, you know, giving back to our broker giving back to the community giving back to the clients. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:06:27 

And it's interesting, I mean, three words stood out to me whenever you were talking about your service to clients and how you deal with them. And that was navigating the storm. And obviously you one of the biggest arms up you saw in recent times, which were hopefully at the other end of was the COVID-19 pandemic, and wondering how much you had to change things during that time. And maybe what you learned from that experience as well. 

Ryan White  00:06:48 

Oh, it was it was tricky, you know, the fact that it came so fast, getting everybody to, you know, work remotely work together in a time that you know, the volumes and the housing market, especially right after everything kind of set in with a pandemic was unbelievable. I think some of the things that we've learned from it is really, you know trust the team, you know, work together to be in any challenges that that life may throw at you. And, you know, we still have people working hybrid, we still have, you know, people, you know, servicing our brokers but from home, I think we've learned that, you know, we have to trust each other and make sure that we're everyone's working hard, regardless if it's in the office, or if it's at home. And really getting through the deals it was, it was a trying time. And we had to learn how to manage with the volumes as well as being a small growing company. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:07:42 

Yeah, for sure. And you mentioned earlier, the end kind of icon program, and it was kind of a run in time of the pandemic, I believe that you were formulating that program. Could you tell us a little bit more about that and about how it works? 

Ryan White  00:07:53 

Yeah, absolutely. It's really simple as you close more deals on the internal side with MCAN, and you get higher to higher tiers. And basically what that means is you start triggering new rewards, rewards like free mortgage payments for the clients that you place with us rate discounts to give you even better heads up in the market with better rates, offerings, both on the A and the B side, charitable donations access to broker summits. And this year is really exciting. It's our first ever MCAN home trip, which we're going to Iceland. So we're really we're really happy about that. And really just to go back to those three pillars of people purpose and performance, we really just want to reward our partners that are working together, the more that the more that we can help their their clients through MCAN, the more that we're going to reward them for their loyalty and working together with us, and just doing a little different than others, rather than you know, just give the reward to the broker themselves, include that end client and make everybody happy with the transaction. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:08:56 

All right, nice and you certainly cannot complain about a trip to Iceland.  

Ryan White  00:09:01 

No, not at all.  

Fergal McAlinden  00:09:03 

Good stuff. And in terms of the impact that it's had on the broker relationships and clients, I mean, what's the feedback been like? 

Ryan White  00:09:09 

It's been really good the we really the whole purpose is is to give back to the client in order to increase referral business back to the brokers business. So basically, we're looking not to just reward them for one client for one deal. We're looking for that client to refer 5-10 families back to that to that broker to to exponentially build the business for that broker, be it if the new deals are with MCAN or not. We really just want to make sure that that client becomes a sounding board for that brokers business through some of the things that we do for the end client. It's been also amazing like we do little other small stuff like we have a one tree planted program. So for every deal you find with them can be it on the side or the alternative side. We'll plant four trees. One for us, one for the community, one for the broker one for the end client, especially with everything that's going on in the world with all the wire fires and whatnot, we just like to be able to, you know, do another step that's a little different to do to help make a difference.  

Fergal McAlinden  00:10:14 

Alright, that is really good stuff and really commendable. And then of course, you have your MCAN partner summits as well. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about those and how you put those groups together? And really what what your goals are there?  

Harriet Cammayo  00:10:26 

Yeah, so our Partner Summit is, it's a special event that we host for our partners who hit a disruptive status in our icon program. So it's designed to connect partners who may not always be together in events. So it's, you know, it's a different level of access and experience. So it's really all about gaining new perspective. So just recently, actually, we had our first ever summit in Vancouver. So we gather brokers who are experts in the region with different levels of, you know, experience and expertise. And what we saw from this mainly is, you know, we saw friendships and collaborations forming, which was really nice to see. And what's nice about this is that we had a chance to introduce our team, to our partners. So we had our COO there, president of MCAN, you know, our director of marketing, you know, Ryan was there as well. So we had a group here at home MCAN team there to really hear and understand the feedbacks, which is good and very constructive. So our goal, really, with these summits, is to keep moving forward. So we had our own partners help us do that. And what's important is that our partners allowed us to understand regional needs. And so you know, it propelled us to help drive real change in support, especially of that region as well, which is super important. So we recently after that, we've recently just increased our allowances for contributory and border income based on market trends, what the client's needs, that's very much communicated by the brokers. And we've also expanded the occupation ah occupations, including our business for self program. And again, which was very much needed for that region. So it really reflective of what we're seeing what we're hearing, and especially in a very business for self heavy market like BC. So we've we've taken the feedback we've taken the experience, and really we want to drive real changes is the main goal for our partner summits. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:12:28 

All right, fantastic. Well, look, we've covered plenty of ground today, Harriet and Ryan, before I let you go, do you have any final words for our audience listening today? 

Ryan White  00:12:37 

Oh, this isn't MCAN specific, but I always say communication is critical that talk to your BDMs, talk to your underwriters, your your deal run specialists, and really, you know, make sure that we're utilizing everyone's time and make sure that, you know, we, we can help make this deal fit. The easier we ask upfront or the more we ask upfront, the easier we make it at the end, I will put a little plug in if you haven't tried MCAN and find out what you're missing and reach out to your BDM. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:13:06 

Alright, great stuff. Well, I can't think of a more fitting point to leave our discussion for today. Ryan and Harriet great to speak with you both. And here's some more about what's happening over at MCAN home. I'm sure our broker audience got plenty of great insight from you today. So thanks again to you both for coming on today. And yeah, I'm sure we'll talk very soon. 

Ryan White  00:13:23 

Thank you so much for having us. 

Fergal McAlinden  00:13:26 

All right. Well, that's just about all we have time for on today's edition of CMP talk and my thanks once again to MCAN. home for joining us today. Thanks to you for listening and we will talk to you next time. 

CMP Talk  00:13:35 

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