How Mission 35 Mortgages is driving digital innovation in the mortgage space

Hello again and thanks for joining us on another edition of CMP TV. I'm Fergal McAlinden CMPs news editor, and today we're taking a closer look at one of the winners from our recent Canadian mortgage awards in Toronto. This year's award saw more entries and nominations and ever one of the most closely contested categories was the digital innovation in a brokerage award. Coming away with that award was Mission 35 mortgages whose principal broker and founder Brian Hogben joins us today to talk through some of the reasons behind the company's win. Brian many thanks for joining us today. How are things with you?

Brian Hogben  05:05:44

Things are amazing Fergal. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm very humbled by this experience. So thank you so much.

Fergal McAlinden  05:05:49

Well, first of all, congratulations, as I mentioned, really hotly contested award, how does it feel to win that one? Digital innovation in the brokerage?

Brian Hogben  05:05:57

It's pretty wild to be awesome. But I think if you ask any of my friends or family, they probably would not associate Brian Hogben and technology or digital innovation together, right? So we're really proud of this. And I think what that really speaks to is the amazing team that we have at Mission 35 mortgages, because the award is really a result of us, you know, thinking of a solution to a problem that we saw, and the team coming together here and building this amazing platform that in order to train the mortgage agents.

Fergal McAlinden  05:06:26

Okay, so let's go back to the beginning, Brian, if you could tell us a little bit, first of all about the company how it came about and stuff like that.

Brian Hogben  05:06:33

Yeah, sure. Mission 35 mortgages, it came about because freedom 55 was taken already. So and we wanted to do it quicker. But in all sincerity. You know, ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be financially secure. By the time I was 35 years old. It's something that was always near and dear to my heart. I always told my dad that. And what financially secure meant to me was having no mortgage on my house. So we're missing 35 pain from is actually, you know, it's a result of you know, ever since I was young, my dad would teach me things like spend less than what you make still good advice. Today, he would say things like, if you're broke making $30,000 a year, you'll be broke making $300,000 a year, so budget your money. And just over the course of years, he helped me purchase some investment properties. And over about 1015 years, by the time I was 34 years old, I was able to sell the very first investment property that I ever got, and it was enough to pay off the mortgage on my house. So hence the name Mission 35. And, and why we pursued that name and build this business is because my dad, he wasn't able to see me accomplish my dream because two years prior he died of acute myeloid leukemia. And so I decided, you know, what being in place for Financial Security gave me a lot of courage to, you know, help Canadians with their number one investment, which I think is their home, right? So we're really come from a place of being able to help people make good decisions, whether we do the mortgage or don't do the mortgage, we find that we always are able to come from that foundation and do the right thing for people.

Fergal McAlinden  05:08:00

Okay, nice. You know, I've always seen the name Mission 35. And I've always meant to ask how that actually came about so so interested in Bexley hear the back story behind it. But So Brian, digital innovation and a brokerage, we know that obviously, your online agent training platform was, you know, a really big part of you winning that award. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Brian Hogben  05:08:20

Yeah, of course, you know, it's if we're really proud of it, you know, it really stemmed from seeing a problem because, you know, I think in the mortgage broker world, we have a tremendous talent pool of mortgage brokers, right. Mortgage brokers across Canada are awesome, they do great job teaching people, or they do a great job teaching the clients. However, because mortgage brokers get compensated fairly well. There's not a lot of incentive to train people sometimes because it takes twice as long to teach someone to do something as it does to do it yourself. And I'm a big believer that I think mortgage brokers are probably maybe the number one financial consultant when it comes down to Canadians, because they're advising on the number one investment that people have. So with the Academy, we want to build a platform that Mission 35 Academy is to how can we systematize but still give the personal service to train new mortgage agents and existing mortgage agents on how to get better service, better knowledge and really help more and more Canadians in. And what we did was we built a platform, it's essentially eight training sessions a week live on we use Microsoft Teams. And it's taught by our award winning mortgage agents right now, juniors all the way up to seniors. And it's common themes every single week. It's common themes, but it's taught by different people. And it all gets categorized into an online learning platform. So basically, any agent can go on and look at and say, I want to learn about the market update the economic update, and it's all relevant like even right now as we're filming this. We have a training session going on in another room. So it's always being fed new content, because I think in the mortgage broker world it's so it moves all the time, your rates change, policies, change rules change. So it was really important to us that we had an online learning platform that was as personal as could be, but also gave relevant information all the time too, because I think a lot of times, as soon as you build a training platform in time, by the time you hit play or go, it could be obsolete. And then you got to build another one. So this was kind of the solution to that problem and really help our industry grow.

Fergal McAlinden  05:10:27

It's really interesting that you mentioned that it caters to both new and established agents, because obviously, what majority agents are looking for in terms of their education isn't always the same thing is an established or someone who's been in the business for quite a while. So what are some of the ways that indicators both?

Brian Hogben  05:10:42

Great question, and, you know, at our brokerage, you know, we have agents that are brand new haven't funded a deal yet all the way up to you know, our top team does $100 million in volume, and then we have everything in between. And because we've structured it as like, I equate it to the Mandarin, it's like an all you can eat buffet of training. So if I'm a newbie, I may not gravitate towards the guy or girl as the 100 million dollar team, because they're just lightyears ahead. So I just may not attend to that training. But because we have so say, for example, we have a course on Tuesday afternoons, scripts, right learning about scripts, how to talk to realtors, financial planners, or clients and things like that, and what to say, I would have one of our newer agents that's been in the industry under a year teach the course with their flair, and how what's authentic to them. But in addition, we have the top producer teach it next week, and then we might have someone in the middle teach it the following week. So you know, someone might say, if I teach the course, maybe like Brian, you kind of sound like a used car salesman, I don't really like how you do things. That's fine. They might like how Brenda teaches it, or how Joe teaches it, because I think in our industry, there's so many different ways to get to the end result. And I'd be naive to think that I have all the ways. So that's why we really encourage and we have that culture of collaboration where our team gets to come into and teach it. So the new agent can learn from another new agent, or maybe one that's just a step above. Whereas the medium agent can learn from the large agent, I'm equating it to small, medium and large. But you get the idea.

Fergal McAlinden  05:12:09

For sure. I mean, you've won the award, a really interesting time for the industry as a whole with that technology, obviously, over the past couple of years has become increasingly prominent, it's more important than ever. So how important is Brian? Is digital innovation to the brokerage and why do you think it should be a focus for agents and brokers in the mortgage space?

Brian Hogben  05:12:30

A great question, I think, and I never thought that I would be as embracing technology. It's actually my affirmation when I wake up in the morning. It's I love technology, I love technology. I'm the old school guy that used to write in the book all the time. The reality is, though, is that I think everybody from consumer to mortgage agents to just people in general expect an amazing experience. And it's very difficult to create an amazing experience without technology, you know, our good friend Jeff Bezos created anything can come to your door within 24 hours. So the expectation is how do we make things easier, right. And I think if you're not in a brokerage, or you're not somewhere that's not embracing technology on how to make the process easier, you're gonna get left behind, because customers are going to expect it. And then our agents expect as well, too, because agents are working remotely, you could have be at an agent in British Columbia working in Ontario, you might have an agent that's on a holiday in Mexico, they still want to be in the training, they still want to be in the loop. And to be able to participate as in, you're in the office, when you could be outside of the country is really important. So I think technology allows us to emulate an experience over and over again, for these people.

Fergal McAlinden  05:13:40

Yeah, for sure. It's such a massive asset in that sense. I'm Brian, before I let you go, is there any final message that you'd like to give to agents or mortgage professionals? Who maybe what?

Brian Hogben  05:13:51

Yeah, you know what, for as much as you know, I'm for the Digital Innovation Award. And we love technology. I get asked all the time, you know, is technology going to replace mortgage brokers and mortgage agents? And I just think people should know, listen, I think the technology is going to enhance our experience, it's going to enhance the customer experience. But your realtor partner, your financial planner, partner, your past client, your centers of influence, anybody that you talk to, is not going to answer the phone and chat GPT calls, they want you to call. And I think the best way to build a relationship is still connecting with people to build trust. But we have to use technology in order to enhance the experience. But never forget, I don't think anything like this eye contact, whether you're on Zoom or teams, nothing will beat that in the future as well, too. So just remember that technology is great, but nothing will replace the personal relationship.

Fergal McAlinden  05:14:41

Okay, nice. Well, I couldn't think of a better place for us to leave it up to date. So look, thanks again, Brian, for your time. And congratulations to you and the whole team at Mission 35 on the award. And yeah, I'm sure we'll talk again soon. 

Brian Hogben  05:14:52

I hope so. Thanks Fergal, thanks so much. 

Fergal McAlinden  05:14:55

That just about does it for today's edition of CMP TV. My thanks again to Brian Hogben and Mission 35 mortgages for joining us. Thanks to you for watching, and we'll see you next time.