[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome, listeners. You're listening to the Deeds in the Desert, where real estate investors tune in for the latest news.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of Deeds in the Desert. I'm your host today, Izzy Irizarry. And with me I have Chief Compliance Officer Misty Bethany.
[00:00:15] Speaker C: Hi.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: So today's topic we're going to cover building a strong foundation. We been wanting to cover this topic. Waiting for a perfect time to really release this episode. I know I've talked with Misty a couple weeks ago about this. We did, however, release a blog on the same topic once again a couple weeks ago on the Ignite Funding website. So if you get a chance, go ahead and head on over to that and you guys can go ahead and read that in its entirety. So let's jump right in, Misty.
[00:00:41] Speaker C: Let's do it.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Let's talk everything about investor relations. But to talk about investor relations, I feel like we have to go back to the dawn of time. If you want to say I've been here since then. Yeah, yeah, you came with the building. Right.
So let's talk a little bit about that. Because I think the key thing that people don't, don't really understand is that to have a good investor relationship team, you have to have a team to do so. And what I mean by that is many moons ago, we didn't really have, we didn't have a customer service department at all. Service department. We didn't have any of that. You know, all we had was the business development execs and what we used to call them, investment agents at the time. But there was truly not a full blown client services department. So let's fast forward so that people understand why we're focusing so much on the client services department and how we got there. So I'll start. It was probably about four or five years ago, we sent a survey out to our clients and it was a general client survey, trying to see what they were satisfied with, what their issues were and if was there anything that we can improve upon? And the one dart that stuck out to all of us was you don't communicate enough with us. You don't reach out enough to us. And I thought it was weird because remember looking at the stats and I'm like, we're calling people three times a month. We're emailing them five to ten times a month. We're doing everything that we can right now, and it's still not enough. Well, how do we improve that? Well, lo and behold, your client services department consistency.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Right?
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's talk about that. What started that entire thing, I understand the survey is what preemptively started that, but where did we go from there?
[00:02:19] Speaker C: You know, and you're right, it was about four or five years ago. And I want to say it didn't quite correlate necessarily with COVID but it was right at that time where I think we started focusing more on that. And it became more and more important to reach out to clients during that time. Right. And so it's all about staffing. So we realized from that survey that it didn't matter what we thought we were doing. It's client's perception. And the client's perception was that we were not reaching out to them, at least not in the way that they wanted to be reached out to or how it mattered to them. So we had to find staff that really liked to do that. Right. That that was their focus and their passion and their drive. And then we. It's Covid. We had to find the staff.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: That was rough. It was rough in and of itself.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: So slowly since that time, we built out that department. And you know, right now, besides myself, we've got three. Three client service representatives. And so last week, in fact flipped flip the script from we don't hear from you to yeah, I know about that payoff. I think I've gotten six communications from you in the last two weeks. Because we email, we call, we do all of the things. And so we're emailing automatically. The company does. Right. And client services reaches out directly to the clients as well.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: I think that's one thing that really flipped the script complete 180, is that we went from thinking we communicated enough to, I feel, in a sense, over communicating. But I'm not hearing anybody upset about that.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Nobody's upset.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: No. Whether it's between, like you just mentioned, having a payoff on a loan, reinvesting their funds so they're not sitting on the sideline. New available investments coming out, anything and everything, we're just sending it out. And when you really think about it, between your team, the marketing team, even the sales team, everybody that's mixed in, even the system itself, you could be receiving about 10 pieces of communication from us in a week easily.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: And that's a good point is the system is really that fourth invisible customer service representative. And what I mean by that is when somebody goes on a loan and they're going to get reminders, up to three reminders that they haven't completed this, that or the other doc spuns. So that is another key piece where there's Consistency, and nothing's falling through the cracks.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: I think that's the one thing that we did very well was, you know, listening to the feedback and trying to be more proactive to that sense of things. And by developing that department, it's still in my eyes, I feel it's still in the infancies. It hasn't been around for very long. Not as long as obviously the entire company itself. But it's interesting to see where we've come so far. You know, we. We also did another survey many years after that, tried to figure out what's the best way people wanted to communicate. I was shocked. A lot of people didn't want to talk by phone. It was email. Email. And I was kind of shocked by that. I didn't think that was going to be number one. It wasn't even number two. Remember, text messages were the second way. And, you know, that's why we have what we have now because we want to streamline and be more efficient with the clients, because we understand. I think actually a lot of people don't understand is that when we're calling and speaking to these clients, they're working too.
It's really hard to really fathom that, but they are working too, and they need to get that quick communication. And I think that's why email became so much more popular. As far as the communication style and the text, it's very easy to respond. Yes, place me for, you know, X amount yourself.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: How do you take care of your business during the day?
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Same way. Yeah, same way.
[00:05:55] Speaker C: You don't have time for a phone call?
[00:05:56] Speaker B: No, definitely not. So that opens up to. The next thing we want to talk about is like open line of communication. That's probably the biggest thing that we have. We're not giving you direct phone lines to people. We're giving you the one direct line to the client services department. Because anybody you can talk to, anybody, and they can assist you. All those people that are out there are licensed right now. They're able to help you with that. And then guess what? If they're still not available, you're here too. I think that's one thing people forget.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: Yeah. And a lot of. A lot of times our investors don't understand that. Even though you might have talked to Ryan last week, you know, Anthony can help you this week because we are a very cohesive group. So any information that we have is shared in our database. Right. So you don't have to re. Explain why you're calling or what's going on. We can see that at a glance and provide that same level of customer service, regardless of who you reach on the phone. And we do that for a couple reasons, is one, somebody may be on vacation, they may be out to lunch, they may be on another phone call. We don't want you to wait.
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Yeah, notes, notes, notes. Take look at the call records. I mean, you're not wrong. It's very easy for somebody to pick up where somebody else left off and be able to assist the client. And I think it's one biggest thing that the client service department has brought is the open line of communication. The not just the transparency side of things, but also listening. Listening is so key in the investor relations side of things. And I think we've done that better than we have in years past, especially.
[00:07:23] Speaker C: Where we're at now and making those connections too.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: I think the other thing too is I think a lot of people forget us being here in Las Vegas. It is a destination for a lot of people. Many of them are doing other things, but we always remind them, no matter what. Stopping by the office, visit us. Yeah. Come by the office, usually have some swag or something cool to give you. But definitely come see us, especially if you never have. There's some clients we've had, you know, five, ten plus years who've never come to the office. So if they're ever in Las Vegas around, definitely. I know, I know. Sometimes people are like, oh, I had so and so come to the off stage. Who'd you have? You know, so touting that is. Is really important, though. I think it helps not just with transparency, not just with the open line of communication, but that is one component of investor relations. I think a lot of people really don't think about, you know, especially since COVID a lot of people are the work from home or the remote style stuff, you know, for us, you know, we're brick and mortar still coming to our office right here on Sunset and in Las Vegas. I think it's a. I think it's a great opportunity a lot of people don't take advantage of. And I wish more would. I hope more would.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: I wish they would too. Because what investors may not realize is we know who you are. It doesn't matter if we've ever met you. We know who you are and we know about your lives and we want to meet you in person. And you matter to us.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: All right, let's go ahead and jump right into topic number two, which is building trust through communication. How are we doing that? So the first thing I want to Talk about is our new client portal. I say new because we did launch it this year. It's not new as of last week, but it is new this year. That client portal was an encumbersome project. I know Carrie and many of the developers and IT people worked tirelessly on that. But I think what they brought to the table is something that we've been missing for a long time. Just like when we brought in the client services department.
For those clients that have never logged into their client portal, please do so if you have not yet. Client services can help you do that and client services can help you do that. But make sure you go and do that. But tell me some of the things you really like about the client portal that has changed. How our investor relations and our communication has overall just changed in general.
[00:09:27] Speaker C: You can log in and you can see everything at a glance. And for me, you know, as compliance manager as well as client services which is a unique couple of hats to wear.
It is most critical if you have a loan that's experiencing any kind of issue, you know, whether that be a default scenario or forbearance, you can log in at 10pm and see what the latest update is. And I don't think investors realize that that really whatever is up there is truly live whether it be your investments or those updates on those, those projects.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we're really trying to stay in line with what a lot of other people do on their day to day is check their bank accounts. The first thing some people do is wake up in the morning is check their bank account. I know for some people they're not in that habit on the ignite funding but when we release some new features that we have not released yet, I think they will want to be logging in daily if not every other day just to see what's going on, especially on the back end. Because I mean that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to put more into the. Not just for the client portal but we're trying to put more into the investor relations side. How can we do more for the investors? How can we take away some of the angst they may be dealing with? And I think the new revamped client portal did take away a lot of it. Is it complete? No. Is there never. It's never done. It's never done. But we'll try to get it as much as we can. And that goes back to once again feedback. What did so many of our investors say? We wanted more. Our analytical clients wanted more. I Wanted reporting, I wanted to export, I wanted CSV files, I wanted to see investment allocations. I wanted to know how much I got paid off and when and where. An individual. I can go on and go on, but I think there's so many things.
[00:11:11] Speaker C: Well to the relationship we built with those clients because you're right, they've given us feedback, they've given us spreadsheets to look at and say, this is really what I'm looking for. And we take that all in and you may not see that change happen the next day. Things take time. But just like with the feedback on, we don't hear from you enough. Yeah, we are working on all those things.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Let's jump into another portal now. I think this is the one thing that really separates us from other companies and I don't mean just real estate companies. I mean any investment, whether it's raising capital or selling an investment. I think this is where we separate ourselves. Which is the default portal?
[00:11:48] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: The new default portal can be accessed right when you log into the client portal. So once again, listeners, if you're a client and you haven't logged in, please log into your client portal to be able to see that. And if you are on a default, it's very easy to see where it's at.
So tell me, what do you like about the default portal?
[00:12:05] Speaker C: The transparency. So as the compliance officer for the company that is, my main focus is making sure that we have those updates to our investors as we have them. And at a minimum of once a month, there's a lot of time where there's not going to be much movement in that regard. But we don't want you to ever feel that nothing's happening because something is always happening. There's not a day that goes by that Carrie or myself or Pat are not working on actively resolving the defaults. And so that it's near and dear to me. And so just the fact that they can go there, they can see those updates and they can see the whole history of the updates from the very first time the borrower missed a payment all the way through what's current.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: And they're not having to scramble and look in multiple places either. I mean, you go right to the default, you scroll right to the very bottom. I think the one feature from a marketing aspect is I really like that we're able to embed things in there. So like when you do have like the notice of default, they can actually see that when you have communication, if any lawyers or attorneys are involved, they can see that everything is point blank right on there, and it's captured all in one spot. You're not having to go anywhere else. But the biggest thing goes back to the investor relations side of things is it's transparent.
[00:13:24] Speaker C: It's transparent.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: We do. We do.
[00:13:26] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: I think we do a pretty good job on that side of things.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: And the feedback that I've gotten is pretty much that they really like it. Now there's. There's some investors that they don't want to read those legal filings. And that's okay. You don't have to click on that. But we're going to summarize it for you as well.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:40] Speaker C: And then there's other investors, probably kind of like me, who want to know more.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Everything. Yeah.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: And we give you as much as we legally can give you without compromising any possible resolution to that default.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Yeah. So I think you touched on something really, I think some people may have missed is legally. That's the other thing is that, you know, our. At the end of the day, we're trying to not just protect the investors, we're trying to protect ourselves, and we're trying to protect the asset itself, because that's everything that we're trying to do. And I think sometimes people, or just investors in general, like, there has to be more. And it's like, it's not that sometimes there's not more. It's that we're just giving you exactly what needs to be put out there. Real estate is so fluid, and I don't think people really understand that. Sometimes they think it's cookie cutter because they may have bought a house and they're like, oh, it's all done. But it's not always like that. It's not just abc, it's a L, maybe back to F, whatever it is, but it's a little bit all over the place. But again, I really, really like what we've done with the default portal. I think it minimizes a lot of the questions for clients, and I think it brings a whole new aspect to what we were able to provide them. I don't remember really being able to provide them as much information before. The timeline is very important. Being able to put, you know, documents in there that they're allowed to see that as public knowledge, including videos. We just did that for the first time on one of them. And I know it was really extensive, but for people who do want the answers, I mean, that's gonna be the best place to go. You know, we have the entire team is on that that's from compliance to marketing to underwriting, even all the way up to Carrie. Everybody is working on this and making sure that we're giving them everything they can in one spot.
[00:15:21] Speaker C: That's right. And that is customer service, because that's the missing piece. Right. That's when you're on a loan like that, that's what you want to know about and working to provide that.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Let's go all the way back to the infancy now, before a client is ever even a client, when they're a lead, they come in through our system, whatever type of marketing we met about, an event or advertising, social media, wherever have you. And we're talking about those first calls and we're going to touch on how we build, you know, a good foundation on our communication with them simply by talking about risk versus reward. Yeah, I know some people cringe when they hear the first call. And we're talking about defaults, forbearances, what can happen, the what ifs. But I love that. I truthfully do. And I know you as a compliance person probably does love that too. So let's talk about that. How are we training and ensuring that clients know from the jump what the risk is at? Ignite.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: Yeah, like I said, wearing two hats. Customer service as well as compliance, I think is a strong benefit to ignite into our investors that do come aboard because they are going to know worst case scenario from the very beginning and be able to make an educated decision for themselves. It was interesting because I had a call last week with a new client opening an account, and the first thing he said to me was, I want to invest with you. Please don't talk me out of it. Where on earth.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: Oh my gosh.
[00:16:46] Speaker C: Heard somebody who's doing it, you know, client call where the client's afraid that you're going to talk about it. And I chuckle. And so I'm not going to talk you out of it, but I'm going to let you know what to expect.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:56] Speaker C: And so from the very beginning, we're talking about not if you experience a default, but if you invest with us long enough. And that's our goal, is that you continue to invest with us, that you will at some point experience a default to some degree. And what happens during that process? Because the last thing I want you to do if you're a client is to lose sleep at night. I want you to trust Ignite to see that all the way through for you.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: I've always said if you really want to see what kind of company we Are watch us go through default.
[00:17:27] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: That is the best time to really see all the moving parts. You know, the game we play goes from playing checkers to chess. You know, it's, it's, it's definitely a chess match that people really don't understand. But that is something that I think we've done better than we've ever done before is talking about the risk, you know, the reward. It's very understandable. Passive income, you know, short terms, stuff like that. But I think the biggest thing is making sure so that when it does happen, they're not surprised. It didn't catch them off guard. They're well aware of what's going on and you hit it right on the head. It's not, you know, it's not if you will, it's when, especially if you've been investing long enough. Same thing goes with the stock market. Ebbs and flows. Ebbs and flows. Same thing happens in this market as well.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: Yeah, and I don't. It's not all doom and gloom. When you talk to me, I will tell you how we can mitigate that risk. Diversification. Right. That's the main strategy as well as what. What's the history say now? It's not indicative of future performance, but it tells you something that you need to know.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: I think the other thing too, that we do really well as far as, you know, building good communication. Invest relations is giving them everything that they need. They decide to invest.
We just recently revamped our investment overviews. They used to be called fact sheets. They're now investment overviews, but now we're giving clients even more. On the very bottom right over there, if you scan the QR code on the investment overview or you. I think it's. Click here, you can see additional information about the project. If underwriting has, let's say, additional photos, renderings, I don't know, land that's nearby that's going to be doing, you know, some extensive development. Anything that we can give them.
Any of the projects that have, let's say, certain Lois in there and like, hey, this is who's coming in. Anything that we can do, I think is really, really cool now.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: Yeah, we don't have anything back. We have the information and we can share it. We do.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: What are some other things investors can request before they go on?
[00:19:25] Speaker C: An investment can always request a borrower's financials. That includes their credit tax rep, the appraisal or BPO for the property, the analysis, our underwriter's analysis of the borrower's ability to pay.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. Yes.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: And not only can they request it, because by Nevada regulations we have to allow them to request it, but we actually send it to you whether you request it or not. So on the loan documents, it gives you the option to waive or receive and doesn't matter. You can select waived, but before that loan closes, before you're on the loan, you will receive those documents. It's that important to us.
[00:20:09] Speaker B: What do you investors get after they make their investment?
[00:20:12] Speaker C: That's when they get all the stuff they should keep until that loan pays off, which is copy the promissory note. That's basically the agreement from the borrower and a copy the recorded deed. That's where their name is going to be listed. Right. That's their collateral. They're going to see their name and their percentage of interest on that loan and then a copy of the title policy.
Title policy insurers are in a first lien position and then property insurance. All important.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: I mean, that, that's, that's all just on one investment too.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: And I always say this, if ignite funding were to go away tomorrow, it doesn't matter because you have those documents and that is your collateral.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Well, there you have it.
[00:20:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: So last thing I want to touch on is the education and engagement side of things. We've touched on quite a bit, but I want to talk a little bit about that because one of those platforms is what we're doing right now here on Deeds in the Desert. We do these podcasts for education purposes. We do this to potentially entice new investors, but we also do it because this episode is more related to our current clients. It's making sure that they all understand because some clients just opened their account last week. There's some clients who've been with us for 10 plus years that probably don't even still know about certain things because it's like a hamster a wheel. They're used to it, they're doing it. They're used to it and they're doing it. There's no other little nuances that they're not used to.
[00:21:32] Speaker C: Things have changed since they came aboard.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Tons of things. Tons of things. I mean, we just talked about the client portal, the default portal, how we communicate, client services department, every, all these little things on how we've just changed in recent years. And I think, I think some of that, you know, catches them off guard. I mean, there's a lot of change in a small amount of time, but it's all good change. It is all good change for their benefit at the end of the day. And I think the one thing that I want to push a little bit more on the education, engagement side of things is, you know, phone, email, text, deeds in the desert, social media coming into the office.
Everything we do. Everything we do is based on the communication, the investor relation. Make sure everybody understands exactly what they're getting into. Making sure they know when, you know, if something hits the fan. This is exactly what you can expect from us. And I think that's another word, is the expectation side of things. It's just not the consistent side of things. Being consistent in communication is important, but also putting out that what are the expectations? What is going to happen if it's good, what is going to happen if it's bad? And how are you guys going to be there for me? And I think that's something that a lot of investors don't always understand until we really put it out there for them. So I hope that they really do appreciate it sometimes.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
I think the challenge sometimes that I have is when a client wants an update, let's say, on a default. Right. And I'm going to give them transparency and honesty. And so I won't tell you something that's going to just make you feel good.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Somewhere here, for a lot of places do that. I'll tell you that.
[00:23:06] Speaker C: I'll tell you the truth.
And, you know, I think that Ignite does a great job of living by this standard, but one of the first things I learned when I joined the industry is this. Live by this motto, under promise and over deliver. That is 100% what we strive to do.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: I think there's four years. I think there's something that we've done very well over the last couple months that we've never done before, which is Pat's analysis that we released.
I love seeing the responses. I know you forward them on. I know you get tons of them, but I love seeing when clients are like, I love that he did this. This was perfect. This was great. This is all I was asking for. You know, there's all these things. And for the clients that don't respond, I totally understand. Because sometimes it may not affect you as much or you're getting what you want, but for those clients, or any client that does view it, see what we're doing. Even goes back to Carrie Stay the portfolio she did back over the summer. I mean, those are things that, once again, we've never done before, but we realized they were necessary. We listened. We listened and we get good feedback from it. And I think that's one thing. And if we get good feedback and people are wanting us to consistently do it, not every month, but if people are wanting us to do it, I think we should provide it to them. And I think we're capable of providing it to them.
[00:24:23] Speaker C: And we're willing to.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Well, Misty, that's all I have for today's topic on building a strong foundation for investor relations. Thank you again for joining us. You're always great. You always have different points of view that I don't think about sometimes and you always carry the conversation very well. So I really appreciate that.
To all of our listeners out there, to all of our followers out there, if you're listening on Spotify, Apple, Podcast, YouTube, whatever you're listening to, if you caught us on social media, please keep liking, please keep subscribing, please keep commenting, everything you can do out there to keep spreading the word because we really do enjoy making this podcast for you here at Ignite Funding. Thanks again for joining us on Deeds in the Desert. We'll catch you guys on the next one.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us this week on Deeds in the Desert, where short term investments meet long investors. We hope you enjoyed the content so much that you share it with all your friends. Who doesn't like learning about passive fixed income, right? Still hungry for more education? Visit our
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