"An open, honest, transparent relationship with your technology provider is key"
This article was produced in partnership with Cloudvirga.
Hesitancy about change is one of the biggest barriers mortgage industry businesses have when it comes to technology and innovation.
“One of the biggest obstacles we come across when chatting with folks about our technology is that they already have a solution, that many are hunkered down in and afraid to change, for a multitude of reasons, most of which don’t have anything to do directly with the technology,” Jason Smith (pictured), head of revenue at Cloudvirga. “It’s more of a mindset. It’s a pain. ‘My people are used to what we are currently using…hesitation is our biggest obstacle’.”
If the pandemic era has taught us anything though, it is that “change can be good, heck, better in many cases. But it doesn’t have to be scary if you have a plan,” he said.
Some of the concerns are understandable.
“Leaders have two key concerns when it comes to new technology – it won’t work right, and people won’t use it,” Smith said. “You can get past the first with the right technology partner, while the second is a bit more reliant on internal change management.”
Cutting through the noise can be a big challenge for any company looking to make a technological change.
“Finding the right technology is making sure that you are, frankly, not being oversold,” he said.
“Just because it’s a huge name, or it’s a really good salesperson, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be the best solution to you, right?”
New technology needs to have “core functionality,” and also answer the question, “how does this align with where I want to be in the future? Does my current technology stack line up with my plans for three years from now?” He added that it should also address current “pain points” as well.
Having briefly sold cars in the past, he knows the benefit of allowing people a “test drive” of sorts, where potential customers can “actually touch and feel it and look at it… because it’s a big purchase. It’s a big change. I want you to feel comfortable with it. You’re going to want to kick the tires, you’re going to want to drive it around for the weekend.”
So too with technology, to see if it can actually work as advertised.
“You’re going to want to get it to people that are going to beat the tar out of it,” figuratively speaking, he said of the test-driving technology.
He is also a big proponent of people asking questions “because you need that buy-in from everyone, because if you don’t have that buy-in from senior leadership, you’re never going to get buy-in down the road to end users.”
He also encourages people to ask questions of business partners, especially ones your technology is integrated with.
“Don’t be afraid to reach out to them,” he said, to find out if they have used a new technology, how they liked it (or did not) – while establishing greater trust with your business partners too.
“We’ve listened to our prospects, and we’ve listened to our clients.”
Cloudvirga was bought by Stewart Information Services just under two years ago, so “we went from being a start-up to being owned by a very large company, a company that has been around for well over 120 years.”
Cloudvirga has not lost its “startup mentality,” but it now has all of those years of experience that it can draw from down the hall. He called Stewart Title “a very good company partner.”
Treading water
Complacency, an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” mentality, can be difficult for some companies to shake. But that complacency can catch up to them, as Southwest Airlines discovered during the recent holiday season, when its old computer systems showed its age and buckled under the strain, resulting in thousands of cancelled flights. And for Southwest’s old system, “that technology works just fine. Until it doesn’t… And that’s what you need to be aware of.”
He admits that he too, surprisingly, can be resistant to technological change. He resisted having more than one computer screen going at one time.
“Do I need a second screen?” he remembers asking. “I’ve been going my entire adult life with one. I’m totally cool.”
And then he got his second screen.
After two weeks, he was a convert.
“I joke that I will physically fight someone if they try to take my second screen,” he said.
During the pandemic period, a lot of companies were treading water, trying to keep their head up. But while he is sympathetic to that thinking two years ago, now, in 2023, he points out that “no company has ever succeeded by just treading water.” When you are treading water, “eventually you’re going to drop because if you’re not swimming towards something, you’re eventually going to run out of energy.” Change is the area “where companies succeed… by constantly looking forward but doing it in a pragmatic way. But moving forward.”
But finding the right fit means answering certain questions.
“Is it scalable? And is it reliable?” he asked. “Is it going to be able to grow with me and all your people. Is it going to be on when I need it to be on, which is going to be all the time?”’
Relationships and reputations
While having reliable system is important, there is a lot more at stake than just making sure paperwork gets filed on time.
“Don’t forget, it’s your reputation,” Smith said. “It’s your brand. It’s your money.”
As with any problem you may face, communication is key.
“Reach out and make sure that your worries are being heard,” he said.
Maintaining those relationships is important a strong, long-term one can be mutually beneficial.
“Look, if you’re only looking for a one-year contract, we’re probably not the right person, not the right company,” Smith said.
“We want you to be with us long-term. We want to get you up on stage with me at conferences. We want to do webinars, we want to do roundtables, we want to promote your brand, as much as we want you to promote my brand. It means we both have to be happy and we have to be secure and unafraid in this relationship.”
Having a relationship like that also comes with some frank talk on both sides, “if you set the right expectation. You might not want to hear what we have to say, or what comes after it, but you’re going to take it a lot better,” because it comes from a transparent place. “An open, honest, transparent relationship with your technology provider is huge… That dialogue leads to competence and diminishes fear.”
He stresses that not knowing the answer to a question is not a sign of weakness, or the end of the world.
“The worst thing you can do on a call is pretend you know something,” Smith said. “You’ve got to keep it simple, straightforward. And don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know.”
The answer to your question may be just a phone call away, or by sitting in on a 15-minute Zoom call with a colleague.
“Never underestimate the power of people who want to help. They want to give you their knowledge,” he said. “Yeah, they want to help you out…they legitimately want to share because, especially in the mortgage industry, because everyone is so tight, we all benefit from it.”
He has seen the industry be “hesitant to change and technology,” but one of the good things to come out of the pandemic era has been that it “forced people to embrace technology. Now, we have to continue with change.”
For more on Cloudvirga, visit: www.cloudvirga.com
