Building Back From Scratch: How to Successfully Start Over & Shift Focus (With Angelo Datseris) – Episode 93

Broker-to-Broker

Angelo Datseries, Broker/Owner of Leverage Lending Group, is out to make himself a household name in his local market of Charlotte, North Carolina. Starting his brokerage in 2007, he had to dramatically scale back his brokerage to survive the 2008 Stock Market Crash. Since that scale down, he has been organically growing back his brokerage through community engagement, social media, and video marketing. Staying true to his goals and himself, he has built a successful brokerage, but for Angelo, the sky’s the limit.

Before joining the Broker channel in the mid-2000s, Angelo was working as a service technician until he seriously hurt his back. After spending a few years in a service advisor role at his brother’s brokerage, he decided to venture out on his own and open Leverage Lending Group.

Starting off, Angelo had a team of nine loan officers, but not long after, the recession upended the industry. Most of his loan officers left to join banks and Angelo had to completely rework his business. After a conversation with his father, he decided to massively scale back unnecessary expenditures, starting with his large office space. Shifting his focus to FHA loans, Angelo survived the market crash and was able to start growing his brokerage back up from scratch.

The key to Angelo’s success is embracing organic growth. Instead of throwing money at expensive leads, he has made it a goal to become a well-known name in his local market. He holds community meet and greets and happy hours with his referral partners, and emails personalized videos, and shares organic social media posts with his ever-growing following as well. He embraces the philosophy of “focus(ing) on helping people and the business will follow.”

Angelo’s parting advice: Build your database on day one. Every person you talk to, every person you make contact with, needs to be added to your database. Once you have that database in place, you need to set up an automation drip to keep yourself in front of them.

Notes:

• Getting into the Mortgage Industry (2:28)

• Surviving the Market Crash (5:28)

• Diversifying Your Loan Products (10:22)

• Keeping a Growth Mindset in a Shrinking Market (15:06)

• Angelo’s Tech Stack/Utilizing Video (21:34)

This episode is sponsored by Guaranty Home Mortgage