Joe Ornato, a London, Ontario-based mortgage agent with Mortgage Centre Canada’s Ornato Group, has built a program around National Bank’s All-In-One product that helps his clients become debt free faster
Ornato’s fast-track process of eliminating his customers’ debt relies on National Bank’s All-In- One program to manage variable expenses in a sub-account – optimizing customers’ money and quickly paying down the principal on their mortgages.
His unique process – which he has trademarked The Mortgage Secret – teaches clients how to clean up their past and master the present as well as their cash flow, so they can make aggressive investments in the future.
Ornato says his program bridges the past and the future, while taking advantage of the All-In-One product. “The All-In- One product is great because it allows you to bank out of multiple accounts all under one umbrella,” he says, adding that the All-In-One enables a client to have up to 99 sub-accounts under one account.
“All I need is one sub-account that a client can bank out of so that I can now isolate their variable expenses,” says Ornato. Variable expenses include grocery bills, automobile gas and big-box store bills – essentially, lifestyle expenses. Added up, these costs are often higher than a mortgage or car payment, but are not often accounted for in a monthly budget.
While the main account manages income and fixed expenses, the sub-account looks after variable expenses – in other words, it acts as a spending account. He works out a weekly figure that his customers require to run their lifestyles.
With a traditional banking set-up, people pay interest on their outstanding debt 24 hours a day, seven days a week, because money is sitting in the account. “With the All-In-One, it works in reverse where all your money is paying down debt until you actually need it, and then you pay interest when you’re using it,” Ornato says.
“Most financial planners want clients to make investments for the future, but nobody actually tackles the client’s biggest obstacle: cleaning up existing debts and feeling like they’re ahead on their mortgage,” he says.
Ornato says that, while financial planners try to get customers to plan for the future, mortgage brokers/agents seem to be reacting to the clients’ pasts when obtaining their mortgages. “But nobody has a process out there to help them in the present to gain confidence financially and rapidly pay down debt so that they feel like they can make these aggressive investments for the future,” he says.
Over time, most of Ornato’s clients become debt free in 10 years or less, compared to a 25-year mortgage – saving them anywhere from $50,000 to $120,000 in interest.
“My goal is to get this all underway and build their confidence so that, in about a year’s time, I can start introducing them to some unique planning concepts, and then I contract that out to a financial planner,” he says.
Ornato recognizes this program is not ideal for every client. The typical client who can benefit from the All-In-One is upper-middle class or a dual-income family with good credit, who are making money but feel they’re not making financial gains.
“It’s not necessarily anyone who has a problem – it’s the client who really just feels caught in the banking trap and that they’re not getting ahead,” he says, adding that they’re not optimizing the money they earn.
Ornato’s in the process of creating a coaching system – which will launch in about a year – for other brokers/agents who want to take their businesses to the next level.
He’s also writing a book on the processes and concepts involved in using the All-In-One in order to inform consumers of its capabilities.
