SVP of sales on the company’s wins and lessons from a year like no other
Rocket Pro TPO has had an interesting year. It started the year as Quicken Loan Mortgage Services but has since rebranded, scaled up and been part of a massive IPO – all while navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
To discover what they’ve done well and what they’ve learned, MPA sat down with Mike Fawaz (pictured), senior vice president of sales at Rocket Pro TPO. He celebrated the success of his team and the role they’ve played in the broker community helping to turn a potentially disastrous year into a big success for mortgage professionals.
“The biggest win for us, was how our company handled the COVID-19 pandemic,” Fawaz said. “We were able to support our team members at a very high level, getting them quickly set up to work from home to ensure our operations remained smooth. From our partners’ perspective, we were able to continue providing brokers service that was simply incredible and unmatched in the industry. We were one of the few lenders who, instead of slowing down, kept their doors open and approved new partners.”
Fawaz attributes that success to the company culture at Rocket Pro TPO. Their priority, he said, is doing the right thing, raising their level of awareness and making life better for their team members and broker partners. Driven by that culture, Fawaz said his team tripled their resources in April, giving 24-hour approval turnarounds for new partner requests, while so many other lenders were slowing down. In fact, Rocket Pro TPO added nearly 1,000 new partner organizations in March and April alone – the months that were the hardest for many other lenders.
Read more: How can originators keep clients engaged in a second lockdown
In engaging with his team, Fawaz took an approach that runs throughout Rocket’s culture: “Feedback is a gift.” He was open to all feedback from his team, and they were open to receiving it from one another. In the various challenges the industry has had to navigate this year, being able to communicate clearly and improve was a serious difference-maker for the lender. The Rocket Pro TPO team averages between eight and 10 years of experience in the industry. Fawaz believes this level of expertise was crucial in those difficult moments.
As 2020 comes to a close, Fawaz believes his team has earned the trust and respect of brokers across the nation. When other lenders closed their doors in reaction to their own operational capacity shortcomings, Rocket Pro TPO served its partners and kept loans flowing.
“In my opinion, uncertainty is the biggest opportunity for growth,” Fawaz said. “That has been a major takeaway from this year. We doubled down on who we are and what we want to be, and we did so when many other lenders struggled. We were one of the few that kept their doors open and did things that other older lenders in the broker channel weren’t doing. This has been a tough year for so many people, but we are proud to have made it a better year for our partners and the clients they serve.”
