Dionne Bass has over 25 years of Mortgage banking/lending experience. She is also an approved NMLS Course provider for Continuing Education and Pre-Licensure Courses for Mortgage Loan Originators. She is the Founder and the Owner of Ask the Underwriter, which was created in 2008 as a blog to bridge the gap between Operations and Sales. She has been writing courses and training mortgage professionals since 2000. She has also trained and assisted mortgage professionals, industry partners and prospective mortgage professionals since 1996. And while she has worked as a Contract Underwriter for 3 major mortgage insurance companies and underwritten for several major lending institutions, her real passion is writing courses and training others.
In this episode, Jason and Dionne discuss:
- Putting your identity in your business
- Seeing a need and meeting it
- Don’t compare yourself to others
- There’s no such thing as perfection
Key Takeaways:
- Seek clarity on what you want to do and who you are and pour that into your business. Look for a problem that you’re passionate about in your industry and create a solution for it.
- Wherever you see that there is a need, meet it. Help others out and always strive to give value to others.
- Don’t compare yourself to others. There’s only one of you and there’s only one of them.
- Everyone wants to be perfect but there’s just no such thing as perfection. If you worry yourself too much over trying not to make any mistakes, you’ll end up making mistakes anyway.
“See a need, meet it.”
- Dionne Bass
Connect with Dionne Bass
Connect with Steve and Jason:
- Website: Rewire, Inc.: Transformed Thinking
- Email: grow@rewireinc.com
Listen to the podcast here:
Dionne Bass- Bridge the Gaps
Hello, and welcome everybody to this episode of The Insight Interviews. This is your host, Jason Abel, and I've got a just a really special guest here, in fact, so special that during our pre interview pre-recording time, sometimes that's like one or two minutes, and, Dionne, I don't know, it's been, I don't know, 15-20 minutes. Like you and I really gotten to know one another. But Dionne Bass, who is the founder of Ask the Underwriter, among all kinds of other fun things, but Dionne, welcome to the show.
Thank you, I am pleased to be here.
We're excited. We're excited about the conversation. I as I did some of my research, you know, I went to your website Ask the Underwriter, and I thought to myself, gosh, when I was in the business myself, especially when I was new in the business, I really wish a resource like this would have existed. And so, I want to get into all of that, but our opening question, as listeners know, of our podcasts, we have a little bit of a different opening question, which is this. You know, if you and I, when we woke up this morning, you know, we opened our eyes, and we're on the right side of the ground, which was really good, which, you know, makes us feel grateful for certain things, so I guess my opening question to you, Dionne would be what are you grateful for today?
Oh, that is a good one. I am a very simple person, Jason. And I'm a Christian. So, I am grateful for my entire family waking up this morning, and for our health. I have gotten several text messages from friends of mine in the past week and a half. They've been diagnosed with cancer. It's just something that we really take for granted our health.
Yeah, yeah. It's so true. I love asking that question I get just to a wide variety of answers because it just depends on the season of life people are in and where they are. Faith, you know, those types of things. But yeah, just the okay, hey, we're all here and we're all safe. What a great place to start from so yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for that. Ask the Underwriter, tell me some of the history behind that, and what the heck is Ask the Underwriter?
It's so fun because Ask the Underwriter actually has gone through some name changes. Okay, so in 2000, I owned an outsource mortgage processing company. That was a mouthful, wasn't it? And I'm sure you remember when you were in the industry, what a outsourced processing company is. So, what ends up happening is you have disgruntled originators, I'm being sarcastic when I say that, and they want their own processor, and they contact people back then, like me, and I would process their loans outside of their company, in my own space. There would be a fee on there that came to me from the title company, or they were writing a check, however that went. While I was there, my passion even then was training, because I trained at the company that I was before there. Everybody that came in, you know, the owner had me training everyone. So, I had all this training material that I had created, and people were always asking me questions. So, I started training in 2000. And back then my training material look nothing, like it does now.
I bet.
So, flash forward to I want to say 2007, from an underwriting standpoint, by then I was an underwriter, and we begin to get, no that's not what happened, I'm so sorry, Jason. I'm from Chicago. I probably should have mentioned that. I'm a Chicago girl.
Okay.
I moved to Georgia. Okay. When I moved to Georgia, I don't know if it's like the water or the leaves or the air, but I got pregnant.
I’m thinking it was a little bit something other than the water or the leaves, by the way, but we'll just we'll just leave it there.
Okay, thanks. So, after drinking that cup of water, I had my son and you already know what happens when you have a kid. Where's your time go?
Yeah.
That's gone. And so, I couldn't figure out how am I going to still train, and you know, take care of my kid and work full time, so, I created a website. So, the name of my processing company was called C-Well group.
Okay.
I created a website for my training company called Alpha Mortgage Training, and this is when kind of blogs startups kind of become popular. My company was Alpha Mortgage Training. My blog was Ask the Underwriter. Now, somebody had already told me that that was absolutely too much, and I needed to pick a name, but I'm a Chicago girl, and I'm stubborn.
Okay.
So, I did not do it.
Okay, good.
So, I created that create the blog and created an email address called Ask the Underwriter. And the funny part is, is that while originators and processors were emailing me, people were emailing me. People were emailing me stuff like I'm in a closing right now, or my closing get cancelled, or the underwriters asking for this. Why are they asking for that? So, I really found myself answering a lot of questions, and that just really motivated me, and it just empowered me to continue with what I was doing. I did not know that God was going to answer that prayer because the mortgage industry crashed, and I had to continue it on a full-time basis.
Don't I remember.
Oh, my gosh, that was some time. And so, during that time, of course, I did more training because there was no work. About three or four years ago, I got into a situation where I wanted to get more clarity on who I was and what I was doing, and one of the things is I've always wanted to bridge the gap between sales and operations. And you've been an originator and you know that the underwriter is the enemy. That was the purpose of me creating the blog call Ask the Underwriter. It's not because I know everything, it's not because I'm an expert. Nobody knows everything, and nobody is an expert. Everybody goes to the guidelines; everybody goes to whatever the written direction is on that. Ask the Underwriter was created to show that the door is open, that you do have access to the underwriter. And so, I decided to just go ahead and stop using Alpha Markers Training with my stuff that's Ask the Underwriter, and it became 100% Ask the Underwriter. And that's the story. Oh, yeah, I also think I forgot to add in there to that, remember when the rules changed after the industry kind of like, imploded?
Few rules changed. Yup.
There was just a few of them. And originally, I just had to start getting training. So of course, I apply for that, and I am an MLS course provider. So, I do continuing education, and I do pre licensing.
So, I have about 38 questions based on what you just said, and I wrote down some quotes of yours that were very interesting to me.
Oh gosh. How much time do we have?
But what I what I want to start with, though Dionne, is not every underwriter does what you did as far as starting a blog, when blogs were not really a thing of wanting to help people and answer questions. You know, you talked about bridging the gap between sales and operations. There's something inside of you that's different. What is it that led you to do all of that creating this company that is now NMLS approved and certified, and I'm sure you get a lot of business because of that. What is it about you that had you write the blog and found the company when well, there's a lot of underwriters out there that they haven't even thought about something like that. So, what is it about you in particular that had you do everything that you just described to me?
I would probably have to refer to my husband's description of me, which is, I got my help-a-holic.
Oh, a help-a-holic.
Or, depending on what I'm doing for that time, a volunteer-a-holic. He's like, do you have to volunteer for everything? Do you have to help everyone? And usually my answer is, but I'm not helping everyone, I'm just helping this organization or this organization.
Sure.
So, when I started in the mortgage industry back in 1995, you were not allowed to talk to the underwriter.
Yeah, right.
You had to talk to the account manager, but because my files were not- can I use janky? Messy?
I like jenky, we'll stick with that one.
There were occasions when I actually did talk to the underwriter, and do you know why they wanted to talk to me? Because they said that they saw me trying, and they wanted to show me something, or they wanted to teach me something, and I never forgot that. And I don't think that I would have ever come as far as I had if those underwriters had not come and asked me. I even had an underwriter’s manager at a pretty major company in Chicago call me at work. Who does this? He called me at work and he said, I remember her name, her name was Tooley.-2.png?width=340&height=260&name=Untitled%20design%20(12)-2.png)
Facts of life.
Yes, and she had a very thick Russian accent, and she loved me. Everybody else couldn't stand her, but she loved me. And he called me and says, Deonne, Tooley wants you. I said, What? He said today, she wants you here. He said, I'm hiring another underwriter. Tooley said, no, she does not want to deal with anybody's crap. Go get Deonna will train her. I was in my 20s. Jason, so don't judge me. I didn't want to drive that far.
Sure.
Oh, my gosh. But like, people like that, that just kept reaching for me and reaching for me, that really just like, well, everybody else needs to be reached out too, everybody else needs the opportunity and a chance too, so that's kind of where it stemmed from.
So, I appreciate that. With your permission, I'm going to go one or two levels deeper, if you're okay with that. So, I appreciate your answer, and I even wrote that down a help-a-holic. That's a word I haven't heard before, but I get it. It's very descriptive. And a volunteer-a-holic. I get that. A lot of help-a-holics that I've run into over the years end up burning themselves out, and they're always helping other people to the detriment of themselves, and maybe that's your case, maybe that's not. This isn't a coaching session, so we're not going there.
Okay.
But there was something from a leadership standpoint that other help-a-holics don't have, because you did create the blog, you do have this thriving business now. You're getting asked to be on podcasts like this one, like there's a difference with you from a leadership standpoint. And you know, sometimes it may be uncomfortable for people to talk about themselves, but I'm asking you, what do you think that is about you?
So, my maiden name is Louis. So, the Louis women. Have you seen that commercial? When they said, we have ants? What was that? Progressive? Oh, like, we've got ants, and you got these women walking around spraying and stuff.
Oh, yeah. My wife loves that commercial.
I live that life. I have ants. I have a mom, who I can kind of group into that. We are a female dominated family, okay? It was just not until this generation that we started to have a lot of males. And so, I come from a family and church, they always were in leadership positions. At work, they always were in leadership positions. I come from a family where if there's a need, meet it. See a need, meet it. I come from a family where the matriarch, my grandmother, God rest her soul. She said, if somebody is hungry, you feed them. You know, it’s just in my DNA. That was the way I was raised. Nothing has changed. I mean, my family, I have an aunt that's like 70 years old and I think she's still volunteers at church, and it's just the way we're wired.
So great. We could end the podcast right now. You just gave gold there, my wrist hurts because I try my best to write down, you gave some nuggets there. You know, first of all, what I heard is, it's in your DNA, it’s the way that you're wired. And so, I've heard other people that I've asked similar questions to where I've gone one or two levels deeper and thank you for allowing me to do that. I don't take that lightly. Because you could have just said no, but we went one or two levels deeper. And basically, I am reframing this a little bit, but basically what I heard you say, Dionne, is I don't know how not to do that. You just said that it's in your DNA. It's the way that you're wired. If you see a need, it's part of who you are to go meet it, and the manner in which that is showing itself to the world is through Ask the Underwriter. Through bridging the gap in the mortgage industry between sales and operations and having, like you said, having the door open to people. So yeah, thank you for that. That is great. Is it okay, if now that we've opened that door, is it okay to go down the leadership track?
Oh, yes.
I just have a few more questions for you when it comes to leadership. You know, most of our listenership is leaders in mortgage and real estate, other industries, also the leaders. And so, we like to ask a lot of questions around that. And you've you filled out some information ahead of time, you know, just even be a guest on the podcast and you wrote down some really neat things when it comes to things that you've learned over the years in the position that you have with this company that you founded, in regards to leadership things insights that you've gleaned, some things that you've learned throughout the years, would you mind summarizing some of that for me?
Name one of them for me.
Some of the things that you said that were really interesting to me was, it's okay to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. To not rely on your memory, you can look things up. Slow and steady wins the race. Don't compare yourself, you know, to other people. There's only one of you and one of them. Those were some of the things that caught my attention.
Okay.
So, here's the question, you know, if we stay down the path of leadership, you've gained some insights and learned some things over the years when it comes to leadership, and I'd love to just hear some of those nuggets, if you wouldn't mind verbalizing some of those for us today.
Okay, I'm trying to just think about my favorite ones. So, here's one, it's really good, and you already know that this is huge in the mortgage industry.
"Do not compare yourself to others. There is only one of the, and one of you. That's so powerful to me, because when you're in sales meetings, when you're in underwriting meetings, when you're in quality control meetings, they show numbers, and what does that do? It's comparing? They did this, you didn't do that. They did this, you didn't do that. And so, I had to kind of, I don't want to use the word develop tough skin, because it's not that tough. Okay? I still get hit. But yeah, I had to remember something. They did not hire me because I act like her, or because I act like him. They hired me because I am me."
Right on.
So, nothing that I'm doing, as long as I'm doing my job, is a surprise to them. And another thing that I've learned, because I'm sticking with the don't compare yourself, is that when I would fall into that rabbit hole, I like to call it a rabbit hole, and I'll tell you about another hole that I talk about too, but when I fall into that rabbit hole, it's hard for me to even do my job. Why? Because I'm not her. I can't underwrite like her. I can't train like her. I can't be her. I can only be me. And when I said that about the hole, it’s that when underwriters kind of go into this hole thing, where they're like, sometimes when they're over conditioning, I call it underwriting yourself into a hole, is you can't, you're only focused on that one thing, and then when you look up, you're like, how do I get in this hole?
Oh, it's so true.
Yes.
I've been on the origination side of an underwriter digging that hole. And that's not fun. And like kind of like I think you're referring to is that the underwriter doesn't want to go down that hole either, right?
No.
Now you're losing context of the bigger picture, but it can happen. It's just yeah, it just can happen. So yeah, very interesting. Don't compare yourself to others. That's a good life lesson Dionne, but also from a leadership and business standpoint. Yeah. Talk to me about, you know, you mentioned something about not having to memorize everything. And this is probably more self-serving than anything else. I don't view myself as having a very good memory. But over the years, I've learned to have help and calendars and things that I can easily look up and things in front of me where it might seem to either myself or my clients or other people that have stuff at the top of my mind, but it's just that I have things at my fingertips.
That’s right.
So for an underwriter, I always wonder about that, because sure, you have to know certain things and you do have to remember certain things, but there's no way that you can learn all of the underwriting guidelines and memorize everything perfect. We're all only humans, but you have some unique things to say about that topic.
I can't even say I've met them. I know this person through someone else. Okay? So I'm using the word “know” loosely. I have only known of one underwriter that has an eidetic. memory. Meaning when they see something, they never forget it.
Okay. So, for the rest of us.
For the rest of us. Yeah, you know, we're posting it and we're doing this. But Jason, I stopped using post- it's because what you write down on that post- it can change. Yeah. So now my post-its look a little bit different nowadays. My post-its say something like, don't forget to look up, which oh, no, wait I just wrote some stuff down. Hold on. All right. Mortgage history is a very big thing right now. Why? We are coming off the heels of COVID, a lot of gaps and stuff like that. Don't forget to look up the guidelines for mortgage history.
Sure. Because that changes.
It changes.
Yeah.
It changes with the market. Don't forget to look up if someone omits something. Don't forget to look up what they omitted. Why? Because you can omit an installment debt, but you cannot omit a lease agreement.
Right.
And you think about this, when we're underwriting we're going, we're going, we're going, where we're going, where we're going, and so, it's very easy to not see that little bitty tiny line that says lease, as opposed to installment. And so, I have over the years, when someone asks me a question, and they do often, I say, let me look that up and get back to you.
Yep.
I don't even give anybody the impression that I know everything, or that everything is inside my head, because it's not. And what that does, Jason, is it teaches them that that's how you're supposed to do it.
Yeah.
If I'm looking it up, then your next question, when you talk to me is going to be where did you find that?
That's right. And kind of like an attorney, almost. You've got the documentation, you've got things so that both of you can, you know, hang your hat on that. So, no, I get that. I appreciate that. Anything else that comes to mind for you from a leadership standpoint?
I do. One thing that I've learned in my 47 years of life is that there is no such thing as perfection.
Yeah.
Okay? Everybody wants you to be perfect, but there is no such thing as perfection. There's just not. And you already know that in underwriting if we make a mistake that cost us money.
Yeah.
If an originator makes a mistake, they've just lost a deal, or they might have lost a referral source. And listen, that could possibly be money, but you're not going to lose your job.
Right, but an underwriter can.
"We could lose our jobs for making quote unquote, mistakes. And so, what ends up happening is that you underwrite scared. You can't underwrite scared. You can't. You have to be able to relax, open your mind because I don't care what anybody tells you, underwriting is not black and white, it is gray."
Yeah.
It is absolutely gray.
Gray is a color, too.
Yes it is. It’s a great color.
Yeah, that's exactly right. So, we do have a lot of underwriting managers that listen to our podcast. I've heard that term underwriting scared, and I've even I've probably experienced some underwriters over the years. Boy, that's hard. I know it's hard for them as a person, and obviously, it's hard for the originators and the borrowers that they're underwriting for. What advice would you give to come up against that scenario of being an underwriter that underwrites scared?
So, I worked for, I guess it's infamous now but Better Mortgage. The company that he fired everybody off Zoom.
Got it.
Okay, actually a really great company. Okay, you know, whatever happened in upper management had absolutely nothing to do with operations and how we were flowing. Okay? I had the best time there. I had the best underwriting manager that I have ever had in life. His name was Cole Peters. I'm sorry, I'm shouting you out Cole, but you know you were awesome. And I remember Cole Peters, when I was going through, because you can't you have to do the one on ones every other week, and Cole and I were talking, and he said Dion, stop, stop. We can't do every deal.
Yeah.
We can't do every deal. He said, what's going to happen if you continue down this path that you're going to start to make mistakes.
Yeah.
Because you're trying, you're worried about, you know, what they're gonna think what this is going to think. And he said, wow, he actually said this. He said, Dionne, I know that you have the experience to underwrite this loan, and if anybody questions you, then you tell them to come talk to me. And I was just like, oh, my God, I've never felt that kind of freedom before. And let me tell you something. Cole looked out for his people. Stuff would come back from QC and Cole would go after them.
Yeah.
And they would disappear.
Yep.
You know, he knew he had a great team. He knew what we knew what we were doing. And he supported us. So, if I had to say anything to any underwriting manager, I don't believe in you know, making comparisons with you act and like any like anybody else, but I just want to say this, allow your team to be human, you know, they're on your team, or they work for your company, because they know what they're doing. You know, trust them. Underwriters work better when their managers have their back.
Yep.
When their managers don't have their back, when their manager is only concerned about sales, then they feel like they're on an island by themselves.
Yes. And so that brings me back to what you were talking about bridging the gap between sales and operations. And so yeah, you're bringing it full circle there. Yes. Golly, we're getting towards the end of our time together today. I didn't ask all the 38 questions, but I've so appreciated the answer so far. Is there anything that I have not asked you today on some of the topics that we've touched on that you wish I would have asked or that you'd like us to know?
I do. I recently put a post out on LinkedIn. See, here's Dionne help-a holic. I recently put a post that on LinkedIn, layoffs are happening almost weekly.-1.png?width=340&height=260&name=Untitled%20design%20(13)-1.png)
Yeah.
All right? And there are a lot of people out there, especially processors and loan assistants that have that have licenses. And I've talked to a couple of people, and a lot of them have said, they don't know if they're going to renew because they cannot afford it. And so, what I created was a link for laid off workers, and all they pay is the $12, to bank the hours for the NMLS so that they can keep their license. This is just a season. This is not going to last. You worked extremely hard to get that license. You studied, you took the test, do not let your license lapse. I will provide the training for free; you just pay the $12 to bank the hours and let's keep you licensed.
Gosh, one, I'm glad you're doing that. Two, I'm glad you brought it up. Hopefully we are one of the platforms that can just disseminate that information. because man, that's so good. What you just said about this is just a season, so many people need to hear that because it feels permanent. I've even heard the term you know the new norm. I don't know about that.
Not at all.
It's new for right now, and it feels really really hard, but it's going to end. This is just a season. Just like the really good season, you know, the record breaking season of mortgage bank that was just season and now it's over. We're in a different season now and we'll be in a different season down the road.
Yes, we will.
So glad you brought that up. Dionne Bass, Ask the Underwriter, where can people find you?
They can find me on LinkedIn under Ask the Underwriter.
Okay.
My website is www.asktheunderwriter.net. I have a Facebook group called Ask the Underwriter.
Boy, you did some good marketing there. It's across all the platforms. Well done. That's not easy to do these days.
No. I have a Tiktok but I'm still I'm still learning Tiktok.
My daughter got me into Tiktok a few years ago and so I’ll look you up.
Well, give me a couple of weeks because I'm still trying to figure out how to get my video up.
It might take a minute. It might take a minute, but that is so good. Well, Dionne, what a pleasure. I love what you're doing. I love that you're help- a- holic but also appreciate the leadership, and this the bridge between sales and operations. That's so darn good. You're doing amazing work. Keep it up. I wish you the best and I just so grateful for your time today.
I am just grateful and honored that you invited me. Thank you so much.
You're welcome. We'll talk soon, Dionne.
Alright, sounds good. Bye bye.
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