0:00 Broker Tools, where we unpack the tools, systems, and strategies that help brokers optimize the way they work. I'm
0:06 Katey, your host, and today we have Heather from Sales Tracker. If you don't
0:11 know Heather, she is the head of customer success at Sales Tracker and works closely with mortgage, asset, and
0:16 commercial brokers, helping them structure their deal flow, improve their visibility across applications, and
0:22 reduce operational friction. As one of the most popular broker CRM available in
0:28 the market, I thought it would be great to catch up and learn more about their recent 2.0 updates in AI
0:34 implementations. Heather, thank you. Welcome to the pod.
0:40 I'm so excited to be here. It is so great. And I think you know sales tracker is a very much a well used
0:47 tool. But before you started working with sales tracker, you actually had a whole other career in life.
0:53 I did. That's true. Um, do you want to uh tell us a little bit about that
0:59 Absolutely. So, I've been in the finance industry for about 20 years and I accidentally fell into it, which is a
1:05 whole another story we don't have time to for, but I most recently spent the last six years working for an aggregator
1:14 um and kind of developed into a role that we created which was the head of um
1:20 training and education. I have a massive passion for
1:26 helping brokers be better at writing loans, at helping consumers, but also being better
1:32 business owners. Um, I've won, you know, mentor of the
1:37 year and a few things a few times. Um, and I'm at that stage in my career and
1:42 my life where leaving people's businesses and leaving
1:48 the industry, if I'm more altruistic than that, leaving all of that in a better place than where I got there,
1:54 that is my driving passion right now. And when the opportunity to come work with the sales tracker team um, in late
2:02 2024 arose, it was an easy yes. The aggregator I worked for was already
2:08 using sales tracker. I was one of the first people who got access to 2.0 to play with it and test with it in the
2:13 very beginning. Um, and I could see where the vision was going and the ultimate kind of plan on giving brokers
2:20 all the tools and resources in one place to be more efficient, to help more consumers um, and ultimately run better
2:27 businesses. It made it really easy which is I guess the big yes because as
2:33 as you know from an aggregator management and growth development point of view uh finding the right CRM for
2:40 your business is half the problem. Absolutely. And and so I guess when you have joined
2:48 um sales tracker what was the part that you love the most about joining them?
2:55 I guess I felt like I got to take all those things that I loved about, you
3:00 know, coaching and strategy and all of that with brokers and businesses and take it to a another level. We've got
3:08 about 12 partners, right? And so instead of doing something in one place with 1500 brokers, I've now got 6,000 users
3:16 that we get feedback and listen to. And it was a newly created role as well. So Dabbor and I have kind of made this up
3:22 as we've gone along. Um but the thing that was really exciting to me I guess about this opportunity is when I joined
3:28 in November of 24 we were almost at the stage where we were going to start
3:34 rolling this out to users and so being involved really in the trenches of
3:39 working with our partners and implementing development plans and strategies about how we're going to roll this out. Um which evolved into I've
3:46 actually got to do a lot of training which is my happy place. I've spent the last certainly since about April,
3:53 lots of times a week, I don't want to go back and count the hours, running development sessions online, attending
3:59 sessions with key broker groups, going to PD days and conferences and explaining and helping brokers. And that certainly since we started our first
4:06migrations because we've got five groups now only on 2.0, which is exciting. um
4:12when we started our first migrations in December that has just ramped up exponentially in and kind of culminating
4:18in this week where we've actually started public sessions open to anybody which are all about that post migration
4:25playbook to really help brokers get into the system and use it and be effective
4:31because 2.0 is really different than 1.0 and anybody who thinks that they can just turn it off on 1.0 one day and walk
4:38in on 2.0 now the next day and they're not going to struggle is lying to themselves. Yeah. And I think like any transition
4:47like whether you're growing your business as from day one as a early day
4:52broker to day like I say day three but what I really meant like year three or
4:58year five there there's always like these transitions and growth hurdles that you go through especially with
5:04technology. Absolutely. And I and I think people underestimated
5:10um the differences between one and two. And that has been I think for some people a challenge.
5:18Nobody likes change, right? Um but I think the sooner that users can kind of
5:24lean into it and prepare themselves if they haven't already migrated, they will have a much more comfortable experience.
5:31And um I I'll tell this story because this was really telling. I we had one of our partners migrate in early January
5:39and I was doing a session with their brokers kind of a postmigration Q&A and I there's about 40 50 people online and
5:46I started the session by saying so how's everybody feeling four days after migration and this one broker said to me
5:53fine there was last week I said so how did you feel last week he said I feel fine
5:59and that's actually what you really want when you go through big technology change I mean it's great if there
6:05singing your praises and I love the new tools and it's really exciting. But really, I think that's the reaction you
6:11want is I'm just able to move on with my business and it's not really a big deal. He attempted training, he learned the
6:18system and it just wasn't a big deal. And that's where I would hope everybody
6:23can be. Yeah. And and not to interrupt, it's that part
6:28where that transition nothing broke like as in they operated one way, they
6:34transitioned over. Um and sure sometimes some in that transition things break. It
6:40happens. But the being fine like nothing truly broke. Um it was business as
6:45normal. Um is a true gift. and and and that's where I really hope that's one of
6:51the reasons I'm so excited to talk to you is because I think for so many brokers and their admin staff and let's
6:58not forget them in this conversation because for so many of these businesses particularly the more complex ones the
7:04people in the CRM are not they're in there for five minutes it's their it's their teams and
7:10their people and and I think for all of the users of the technology to be a little kind to themselves take the time7:17to learn it and give themselves a break if they can't figure something out and you know know that this too shall pass7:24and in a few months time you'll become an expert and you won't even think about it again. Yeah. And and it's kind of like you know7:31whether you've read those books like Tiny Habits or Atomic Habits it's just knowing when that thing ticks7:38over to the next thing because once you've got your trigger sequence in place this is where streamlining occurs.7:46It is. And it's that thing we do with our hands, that subconscious thing we do where we know where to tab, we know where to click, we know where to mouse,7:51and we don't think about it. We can have a conversation and do it. And if you're somebody who can do that over the phone7:56with a client and, you know, do your fact find and do all that without having to think about where your fingers are and what goes next and then you've got a8:03system where the boxes are different and the clicks are different, it can totally slow you down. So, the number one kind of efficiency8:09thing I think they need to people need to do is just understand the differences. Yeah. Did you want to go through and8:15show us uh a couple of the things that have are happening within sales tracker? There are a couple of real kind of8:22really cool and I nerd out on little like uh validation and verification and8:29processing efficiency. So I would love to share a couple of things with you that if brokers are using their system8:37effectively can save them lots of time. I'll just show you two if you don't mind. one's a little bit8:42for it is long. We can nerd out together. All right. So, one of the things that I8:48am super excited about for users that if they take the time to set their system8:54up correctly, you can create a deal really quickly and I can add a team8:59member to my deal. I can add the required documents to the deal. I can easily generate my credit guide and9:05privacy without thinking about it. And then I'm ready to send to my client portal. I'll show you what I mean. So,9:10I'm not going to explain how I'm doing this. Let's just add Jack.9:21He's so funny. I wasn't even thinking about that when I did it, but why not?9:27Make sure my address is right. All I've done now is just create a simple deal. I haven't added any9:33information to this deal, right? Nothing. I haven't done anything else. A few clicks. Yeah. Now, the thing I'm the most9:39impatient about is I need to wait the background to do its things, which will take just a few seconds. I'm going to refresh my screen because I'm impatient.9:46But when I come back here in a second and look at this deal, actually, let's look at the required documents first.9:51You can see it automatically added required documents to my deal.9:56You can see this will take a second longer to generate. It's added a It's going to add a credit guide and privacy10:02to the deal. And I may not have the right one loaded in there. Let me go back to my automation in a minute. The other thing it's done for me here.10:09Yeah, it's added deli to my deal. Okay, you can see all of this. You can do all10:15of this so quickly and then immediately after that you can send the client portal.10:20It takes you seconds to do all of that, not minutes. You don't have to do any of it manually.10:25And some people will do those things step by step. It's it's about learn the basics. Learn how to do a deal first,10:32but then learn what your system can do. And I'll and I'll use this as an illustration as well. So if you are10:39doing the validations and verifications on a deal, for example, and let's just10:44use this. If you're uploading your documents with the appropriate label, your ID docs, your pay slips, I can be10:50in here right now and I could be looking at the10:56identification for my client. If it's if I'm in this deal right now, I can't see11:02any of it, right? I can't see that any of that's done. But if I upload a file to my deal,11:13let's just upload a pedicure card to this deal.11:19If I'm doing it the right way with a label of identity docs.11:26And while I'm waiting for that to load, I'm actually going to also upload just for fun for us all a paylip. So I'm11:31going to illustrate to you two places that you can see this. With the paylips, you need to have an income doc. And you11:39can do this with bank statements and all of this. What you actually see now is when I'm coming down here and I'm validating my,11:46you know, my Medicare card and my passport and everything and how many kids they have. They said they're11:51married with one kid. I can immediately open this Medicare card. The first thing I see is there's four people on the11:57Medicare card. This person's married with one dependent. I'd immediately be able to have questions, right?12:03Yeah. The other place this is really great is in the income. These are those microefficiencies of time. I can open12:10this paylip and I can compare and validate my client's income.12:16When they inevitably have uploaded the wrong one, I've got all my quick actions here. This is a change from version one.12:23All these to be on the home screen of your deal, so you'd have to go back. But I can add a task right here.12:31Not good. Like I can just do it 15 first. I can decide when I want it due.12:37And I can decide how important it is. Even nice. And I can assign it to somebody else.12:43Good old Vlad's going to get this one. And I'm done. I don't have to leave my12:49screen. I don't have to do any of that. And so there's all these micro time12:54efficiencies that if you really learn and embrace the system can really help12:59you. When we talk to brokers, I'll stop sharing for now. When we talked to brokers who were using the system13:06effectively, they're saying that they can process a loan application at least 30% faster than version one.13:12Nice. And in what you were just demonstrating ultimately is what uh13:17inside the industry we call OCR. So ultimately you were uploaded a document13:24and it scanned the document for the key pieces of information and instead of having to do double data entry it's13:30actually extracted that and put it into the right fields for you. So not yet. So what all that is that's13:36coming OCR is absolutely coming Q2 I believe. But what it's doing now is allowing you to validate the actual13:42document to what the client said entered in the portal. OCR is coming. So, this is just for13:49validation. All those things you have to do when you have to validate and verify the information when you're processing a loan application. Um, there's all these13:56micro places where you don't, you know, I I don't need two screens to do this. I don't need to drag something from a14:02cloud or open it up somewhere else. Everything is right in front of my face, which I I really love. Um, mid last14:09year, I actually broke my foot and I was confined to a chair with just my laptop screen. And that allowed me to realize14:16if you use the system right, you don't need a bunch of devices. You need one screen and you can do everything in one14:22place which is really really helpful. Much more efficient. And so what you're saying in that is that if we think about14:29it as a sequence of events, a client actually has manually filled in the14:35custom fields with the uh pastlit details and then they've uploaded a14:40document and then as an admin person you're going in to say hey let's just14:45quickly match and make sure that the document matches what they've the client has actually entered in. And right now14:52um it's not OCR, but soon you're it's actually going to be more efficient14:57because that's going to come in the in the near future. Absolutely. And um we've we've thought15:05about a lot about what are the pain points for brokers, what are the things that take them a lot of time. And we've15:10talked to a lot of brokers. We're lucky. We've got over 6,000 users. And there are two places in a deal that take up a15:20lot of broker's time. The first one is writing really good quality compliance15:28comments, which they're obligated to do to meet their license clauses and their bid obligations and NCCP and all of15:35that. Um, and we know that takes a long time for brokers. Some of them template things and that's great, but is it15:42really customized enough for your deal? That's the first place, right? That's at the end of the process.15:48But the other place that takes brokers so much time is where's this deal going to fit?15:56It's the policy research. It's understanding the nuances of the lenders. Um, and look, I'm an ex bank16:02BDM for a major bank and a smaller bank. And I would get hundreds of emails a day from brokers that were clearly, you16:08know, sending the email to 10 BDMs. Would you do this deal? Here's some information. Does this fit your policy?16:13Right. Yeah. Brokers email a lot of people and they have to wait for an answer. Brokers will ring BDMs and hope they get a phone call16:20back or they spend hours doing research online on broker on lender web pages16:25trying to figure it out. So, we've thought a lot about this and we've actually solved for both of those16:31functions. We've got a compliance AI tool which is really cool. And as has16:36been in the press all this week, we've also now partnered with scenario for policy AI. Scenario has a dynamite16:44tool and we've actually integrated it into sales tracker so they don't have to16:49leave the system. Do you want me to show those few things? Do you want to see them? Yeah, let's do that.16:56Compliance AI because it is one of my favorite favorite things17:02to load out on. I love compliance AI. So just get rid of that pellet. So this has already done my17:08compliance comments. I will leave a few of the boxes here because I just want to illustrate three things for you because17:14the power of this. So the way this works in sales tracker is that we have our17:21compliance comment section designed here with these questions to assist brokers to meet their bid obligations. Like if17:29you look at the way this one is worded here, it is talking about you know your des decision making process17:35um why the product recommendation is in their best interest. Talk about the other products. I won't go into all the17:40details of what we do and how we do this. Um that's a longer conversation.17:46Okay. But we have designed this so that if I click here on compliance AI, it's going17:52to give them a warning. We all know that AI is amazing. We know AI can make mistakes.17:57So the broker is responsible for the content. Have a look at this. It gives18:03us the options presented, the total cost, the breakdown, and then it gives18:10you why it meets the primary objectives of the client, and it's pulling this18:16from certain fields within the deal. Look at how much detail is in that. It's extraordinary, actually. The next one18:22I'll show you here is let's do this one as well. So, this is about demonstrating18:27your analysis, a good analysis of the consumer's overall position and any other commentary you want. A broker is18:34supposed to read this, review it, say, "Yep, I made some changes. I made a little tweaks and now I will import it."18:41It gives a full background assessment of serviceability, talks about their requirements,18:47education, and any compliance requirements and things to think about as well. And here's the one I really18:53like. In this deal that I've put together that you haven't seen that screen, there is a in the risks18:58category, it asks about their credit history. And Bella on this deal has said that she had got a new credit card and19:04set the direct debit up for the wrong day and was late for four months. Right? There's a big explanation in there.19:10Watch what happens when I do this. It will reference that. It's pulling information from specific fields. Oh, it19:16was Jack, not Bella. Sorry. Bella was fine. Yeah, it pulls the information in. Nice.19:22Now, let me just show you the final outcome of what this looks like. When you're looking at the number of words in19:27for compliance when we look at users in version one, four 500 words is probably the average in all of those boxes.19:34Mhm. Check that out. 2,33. You still have to review it. The19:39broker's ultimately responsible for it, but really good compliance notes and all19:44of our partners' compliance teams are very excited about this tool. Yeah, that's the one problem we've solved for.19:51Let me show you the second problem to illustrate this. I might actually come to my compare product screen.19:57So, I have got a deal here and I have20:02these lenders that I'm recommending for the client, but I want to understand a20:08little bit more about how they look at say allowances. How are they really going to assess those allowances? This20:15is where our policy AI, our latest new tool comes in. It lives here in your20:21library. And I could be right on this screen. So I might come in here and say20:26compare um income policies around allowances between20:34McCory. Let's just say McCory and NAP. And you don't have to spell perfectly either. So this does take a few seconds20:41to think. Um, and it will give me a really good piece of information. I've20:48asked it all kinds of questions. I've asked it to compare different lenders. I've asked it what it does. Look at20:53this. Nice. It's a good summary. And if I want to keep a record of this, I can just copy this21:00out of this. I can come to my quick actions, go straight to my note, and just say policy notes. Cut and paste21:07that all in there. And I've got a record in my deal of what I researched. I haven't had to leave my system.21:12Nice. Those two tools alone are going to save brokers so much time.21:19Yes. And I guess this is the key thing of what you're trying to offer through using sales trigger is what I have21:27always called context switching. Like as in when you are changing modes, if it21:32it's a cognitive brain thinking system that you have to go, oh, I'm switching21:37to because I have to do this. you're actually easing the friction in that process in that you know compliance21:45obviously you need to do it coming up with the right words so that it doesn't look like a template that has popped out21:52um it's a bit hard sometimes especially when you're processing as many loans as you do21:58this the first part that you were talking through the compliance side that AI just really streams it's just pulling22:06data from what you've already put in populating the fields putting it through an AI conversational22:13tweak, but of course you have to be the human in the loop and check always22:18always and then and then pretty much compliance is done and dusted for you because you one have read but the time22:26difference is that it it just has reduced so much time. I was talking to a22:32a broker when we first brought this out um in no compliance AI in November of22:37last year and he said to me, "Heather, you just saved me $60,000 a year." I'm22:43like, "What do you mean?" He said, "I was my team is getting at capacity and I was about ready to hire another22:49processing person and I honestly think now if my team embraces the tool and we just need to spend the time reviewing it22:55and editing it rather than coming up with it or thinking of it or templating it." He said, "I think I don't have to23:00hire another person right now." Yeah. And I that's the gift, I guess, of what I call also a structured AI because23:07it's inside sales tracker. Um I'm sure it it's not that you can't use guard23:14rails um in other systems, but guardrails don't always protect you. Do you know what I mean? And it really23:19doesn't always protect client information. And we've heard enough stories out there of how guard rails get23:26taken over. And so, um, not that we're going to go down an AI full funnel here,23:32um, of nerding out together, but because of sales trick of being an in-house23:38system, it is harder for, uh, bad agents to come in and bad AI agents to take23:44over that information. And just on that when you're talking about this and I think this is um something that is23:50important to discuss is that we don't let our AI engine23:58scan your deal. We are saying for this particular box look at this field look at this field look at this field. We24:04don't allow it access to any personally identifiable information. It's looking at your first name what your occupation24:11is. It's not looking at your middle name and your last name and your date of birth and your driver's license. It's not looking at any of that stuff, right?24:18We are we are completely leaning into the efficiencies that AI can help a24:24broker with but keeping our skepticism that it can be wrong sometimes and also24:31a healthy level of caution because one of the things that worries24:36me about AI tools out there right now for brokers is I've heard stories about you know brokers putting their whole24:42trail book into AI to analyze it or putting a factf find in to do my notes24:47and and just or clients financials. Um, and you really have to be careful24:53about that. And I guess part of the reasons we built it the way we have is so that brokers don't feel the need to24:59do that and risk customers information getting into the wrong hands.25:04Yes. And um just the one of the last podcasts um I recently did with um25:11Simone Blake Philly, we were talking about AI chat bots in total and then25:16after we did the pot we actually discussed more like there's a a you know25:23AI agent um it's more been programmed around like the bad behaviors of a human25:30and or good behaviors. It didn't appreciate being called a bot. Like this25:35is fanciness of the this AI agent. So it released the credit card details of the25:41person who called it a bot. Oh dear. And so this is where a like as in AI is25:47being taught to do good things, but it's also been taught how to do the awful stuff. And so your data and your25:54client's data in this industry is is in particular the most secret part. We look26:02we have a lot of other tools coming. We've also just released translate AI where you can if you're a broker who26:08whose English is not your strongest language or you've got a client who English is not their strongest language,26:14you can like say type in English, translate it to Mandarin for them or you can type in um you know Serbian and26:21translate it to English for you or whatever. And it's it's one of those tools to ensure that brokers and26:26consumers can speak to each other well and ultimately ensure that the consumer26:32understands the transaction. Um explaining something like what fixed rate lockin means and if you don't take26:38it to a consumer, you need to be sure they understand you. Yeah. Ticking a box. And so this is our26:44this is one of our other tools as well which is just amazing and that's available to brokers now. Um as well26:50we've got a bit of a road map. Um I'll give you a little sneak um tell you about one of our exciting tools and our26:56aggregator partners are exciting about this. We are working on right now audit AI.27:02We and this is a tool for aggregators more than brokers but it's inbuilt in the system. Um we know and look I've27:09worked at aggregators before that um auditing files is very past tense. You27:14know, people get paid their settlements and then you pick some files and you audit and you audit once or twice a year and it doesn't allow you to provide27:22real-time coaching and pick up anything before it's it happens.27:27We're building an audit AI tool that the second the brokers lodge to the um you27:33know to AOL or Simplogy, it will do an audit of a particular list of things in27:38a deal and provide a report to the aggregator. They'll be able to identify trends, behaviors,27:44coaching opportunities, um, and provide real value to their broker's businesses. So, if people are27:50doing the accidentally doing the wrong thing, they're going to get the help to fix that before it becomes a problem.27:57Perfect. Excited about that one. Yeah. Because I remember um, with one of28:03my other previous clients, I I did what I call preventative measures up front. like as in if you already know that28:09you're going to be audited at the end like this. Um just build it into your28:15practice of of operations by doing all the right things up the front so that by the end of settlement you're not even28:22thinking about your audit because everything's all ready in place. Um, but if you're not one of those kinds of28:28proactive brokers, then this particular tool will help make sure that they pick28:33it up right like as soon as possible so you can fix it because if you do get28:38ordered like three or four years later, it's really hard to remember. Oh, yeah.28:44And that's I just love the way that you know the notes is available on every screen anywhere you are. You can go,28:50"Oh, I need to write that down." Or you can add a task from anywhere. And you don't have to stop what you're doing to28:56do it. I think that will encourage people to take more notes and write more notes29:02because it's not disrupting your process to do that. No. And and and ultimately, it's29:07hopefully quick and easy. I say quick and easy, but you it's almost like a29:12thought pops in your head, you do the task, it's done and dusted. Yeah. Exactly. Um, and there's so much29:19more that brokers can do. I mean, I showed you a quick little easy automation, but you can set up some29:25really sophisticated things in the system. It's really got powerful automations and you can template so many29:31things. You can template your tasks and your required documents and you can template your external notifications to29:38the customers. And one of the things we have coming in the next week or so is the ability to even make the process of29:44creating those faster where you'll be able to just copy one. So if you've got the perfect external notification email29:50that you want to send to the client, you've got it set up perfectly in your templates, you'll be able to just go29:56copy that one and then use it as the framework for the other ones. And so you can create 10 20 email templates for a30:03variety of situations really quick. encourage people to actually do it and use the functionality30:11which is I guess the awesome part of partnering with you as as a service to30:17manage your CRM if people wanted to have a further demonstration or understand a30:22little bit more about sales tracker what should they do where should they go so if they go to our website which is30:29salestracker.com and I actually might let me just share something with you so30:35that I I know a lot of people are visual. It is helpful for them to know where and what to do. If you want to get an30:41understanding saleser.com, you can absolutely contact us here. But I want to highlight one thing here for you.30:48When you click on the news, you'll find out lots of information. And we've got this brand new article that we actually30:53just wrote this week. We used to have one that was 12 productivity tools, and now we have kind of 20 plus productivity31:00tools for your business that are in 2.0 know to assist you. There's so much in31:06here and I encourage people are interested. If you're already a user of the system, regardless which of our31:11partners you're with, there's some really good practical advice for you in here. The other thing that I would31:18encourage people to do is to follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook. We31:24post a all of our information or follow me or follow Dalore. All three of us kind of post the same thing. Um, but31:31following us on social media, you'll find out everything we're up to. We'll send you'll find out about our release31:36notes when we do enhancements and improvements. You'll find out about the events. I'm right now Monday, Wednesday,31:42Fridays, I'm running these postmigration playbook sessions, an hourlong session where people can come and learn all the31:48things they need to know. In the next couple weeks, I'll be adding to those series and we'll be doing a thing on31:54complex deals. So, how do you structure an SMSF deal and how do you structure a company deal? making it easy and then I32:00may be doing productivity sessions. Clearly, that's my happy place and that's what my background is and so32:06that's why I'm here. So, there'll be a lot more public education going on for everybody, but going to our website is32:12the first place to start. Perfect. And um of course, as always, we'll put the links below so it's easy32:19to navigate and everybody can um find the way to you. Um thank you so much for32:25joining the pod. Um Heather, I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me and congratulations on doing this. I am32:31going to be an avid fan. I'm just sure of it. Hey, I'm looking forward to it all. And32:38at the end of the day, um for those of you who are listening to this, uh this is all about you. So, if you want to32:45hear more from Heather and have us do another pod, let us know. Um we will32:50happily nerd out together, honestly. Absolutely. I'd love it. It'd be great. All right. Thank you so much again. Um,32:57and we'll catch you later. Thanks. Bye.
