E24 - Jake Vermillion - The Future of Mortgage Technology and Marketing

Episode 24 - The Future of Mortgage Technology and Marketing: A Personal Conversation with Jake Vermillion

I've been doing this podcast for a while now, and every so often I get to sit down with someone who just gets it. That's exactly what happened when I had my friend Jake Vermillion on the show.

Jake is the CMO at Mortgage Champions, but what makes him really interesting is his story. He grew up in this business - literally. His dad spent three decades climbing from construction worker to mortgage executive, and now they're working together. It's this beautiful blend of old-school industry wisdom and fresh, next-generation thinking that I find so compelling.

What struck me most about our conversation was how Jake approaches the alignment problem that's killing so many mortgage companies right now. Sales, marketing, and technology teams all operating in their own silos, creating fragmented customer experiences. Jake's been working with enterprise-level clients, and he's figured out something crucial: you have to start from the top down. You can't just throw technology at organizational problems and hope they fix themselves.

We spent a lot of time talking about how the traditional marketing funnel is basically dead. Jake pointed out that the median age of first-time homebuyers is now 38, and these aren't people who wake up one morning and decide to buy a house. They're thinking about homeownership 24 to 36 months before they're ready to actually transact. That changes everything about how we need to approach marketing.

Then we got into something that really fascinated me - the dramatic changes happening in marketing team structures. I shared a case study with Jake about a company that went from 38 people in their marketing department down to just 10. At first, that sounds terrifying, right? But when we dug into it, we realized this might actually be the future. With AI and advanced marketing tools, strategic vision and leadership are becoming way more valuable than having huge teams.

Jake and I also dove deep into something that keeps me up at night - how AI is going to completely reshape how customers find mortgage professionals. Jake had some really tactical insights about what's happening between OpenAI and Google right now, but we both agreed that nobody really knows how this is all going to shake out. The key is positioning yourself for the long term rather than trying to optimize for whatever algorithm is trending this month.

One of the most exciting parts of our conversation was when I told Jake about this revolutionary business intelligence platform I've been working with that's entering the mortgage space. We're talking about technology that can answer any business question instantly. Jake immediately understood the implications - we're moving from this "wild west" approach to mortgage management toward something much more strategic and data-driven.

But here's what I really appreciated about Jake's perspective: he has this vision of where the industry is heading - unified technology platforms that eliminate all these disconnected systems that drive us crazy. Companies that embrace data-driven strategies and invest in unified customer experiences aren't just going to survive the challenges we're facing - they're going to dominate.

This conversation with Jake wasn't just another podcast episode for me. It was a roadmap for where we need to be heading and a reminder that the future of mortgage isn't something that's happening to us - it's something we're actively building. And with friends like Jake leading the charge, I'm more excited than ever to see what comes next.