Alex Zere

Introduction and How Alex and Taryell Connected

Taryell Simmons: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Rise Urban Nation. It's your host, Taryell Simmons, and I've got my good friend, my new brother, Alex, in the building. We both had to get our Starbucks in this morning, so Starbucks, if you're listening, please cut the check. Alex, jog my memory. How did we get connected?

Alex Zere: Happy to be on with you, man. It was Irvin Spencer. I first heard him on your podcast. He's like a big bro to me, and I love everything about that guy. He sent me his episode, and then he told me I ought to reach out to you. In financial services, we're always connecting and recommending people to each other.

Taryell Simmons: How we hadn't run into each other sooner is mind blowing. So for the people who don't know you, who is Alex?

Alex Zere: That's a big one. I'm a son, and I'm a father now, with an almost nine-month-old son. I'm a local San Diegan, married to my amazing wife, and I'm a financial services professional. I come from a tight-knit immigrant community. My parents came here from Eritrea, and my mom was six months pregnant when she arrived, so I was almost not even born in America. The identities that are loudest for me are member of a tribe and leader of a family. I've got three younger brothers.

Stumbling Into Financial Services

Taryell Simmons: Explain what part of financial services you're in and how you got into it.

Alex Zere: I do home loans. I provide financing for people buying a home, or restructuring the financing on a home they own, which is a refinance. Loan officer is the most common term. I've been a loan officer since 2015, and in financial services since 2008, and I really stumbled into it. I studied political science at SDSU. I thought I wanted to go to law school until I realized I didn't even want to be in school, and I finished to make my parents happy.

Alex Zere: I was working at Home Depot and I think I got fired for being late all the time. A college friend, Brittany, was a bank teller at Wells Fargo, and while she was helping me with a transaction she said, you should work here. I had applied a year before and never got a call, but she gave me the recruiter's number. I caught the recruiter on the first ring, got the interview and got the job. When I graduated, they gave me a full-time job.

Alex Zere: I worked my way up into management, but I felt limited and micromanaged. Once you understand how the roles in a bank are compensated and what people's quality of life looks like, loan officer was the most attractive role. Season one was doing home loans at Wells Fargo and Bank of America. Season two was a smaller company, Goldwater Bank, which was trying to build a market in California when COVID started, and they made me a manager. Now I'm on the wholesale side, working through a broker. Instead of selling one bank's products, I'm set up with two dozen lenders and I find the product that makes the most sense for you.

Finding Work That Fits Your Personality

Taryell Simmons: Did you ever think you'd be doing this? Did your parents point you toward a career path?

Alex Zere: Education is emphasized a lot in our community, but I was never tied to a calling early in life. I was intellectually curious, and I was most engaged when the person teaching me was engaging. I went to Morse High School and then Mount Miguel, where my chemistry and physics teachers were so good that at eighteen I would have told you I'd go into the sciences. I was even a biology major for a little while. In twelfth grade, I won first place in the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair with a microbiology project and got a scholarship. But at SDSU I didn't have that same connection.

Alex Zere: I can say now that this is for me, because I've structured what I do every day to match my personality. I've found a way to monetize my personality and my interests. My parents always said you have to go to school, but they never pushed doctor, lawyer or engineer.

Taryell Simmons: I tell young people that a career isn't always a staircase. Sometimes it's a maze, and you turn back because that's not your path. Start wherever you are. What was your first job, and what skill did it teach you?

Alex Zere: You're going to laugh. At fourteen, I found a summer job at Cabrillo National Monument at the bottom of Point Loma, doing manual labor, clearing the hillsides and picking up trash. The only thing I learned was that I did not want to do manual labor for a living. My real first job was McDonald's in Rancho San Diego. They didn't trust me to touch the food, so I made drinks at the drive-thru. But I learned that when it's slow, you restock your station: barbecue sauces, napkins, straws. To this day, I like to run through my checklist and do things efficiently.

Doubling Down When Business Slows

Taryell Simmons: I love that analogy. So now, in the third phase of your career, what do you re-up on when there's downtime?

Alex Zere: That's well timed for our industry. From the start of COVID through the end of 2021, mortgage professionals had the greatest production in the history of the industry because interest rates were at record lows.

Taryell Simmons: I was one of your customers. I did the refi to get that two point something percent I'll probably never see again.

Alex Zere: Good for you. On a personal note, I had a newborn and I lost my father last year, so I was in and out of the business during that run, with no regrets. About three months ago, we swung hard in the other direction. Rates are the highest since before the 2008 mortgage crash. Most refinances are done to lower your rate, so that business has dried up, and throughout COVID it was already hard for buyers to get offers accepted. We got punched in both directions at the same time.

Alex Zere: So I'm doubling down. Even though business slowed, we just hired a full-time assistant. I have a marketing consultant, I'm recording video with a videographer after this, and I'm paying for coaching, because I don't work for a big company anymore. I have to own marketing, advertising, business development and coaching. Times like this are opportunities for those of us who are prepared. I'm separating my sales, marketing and business development plans. It's slow, so I'm lining up all my plans, and now it's time to execute. I'm going to plant my feet and go for it.

How to Start a Career in Financial Services

Taryell Simmons: What advice would you give someone in a dead-end job, or a new college student, who wants to get into your industry?

Alex Zere: I'm careful with my words, because people may act on what I say. First, the primary function of a job is utility: it provides income for you and your family. So understand the models. A loan officer at a credit union taking walk-in clients through a process is very different from what I do, where there's a lot of art to it. Understand how you're compensated, then work backwards to the development you'll need. Second, I'm pretty sure no financial services job requires a degree. That's a big misconception. But most roles that pay a commission or a decent income require a license, so learn what that process looks like and whether the company will sponsor you.

Alex Zere: Third, find more than one person already doing the job, at more than one kind of institution: a contract employee and a W-2 employee, a credit union and a national bank, so you can calibrate. Even better, observe them at work. People think they understand something because they Googled or YouTubed it to death, but on YouTube you mostly see the winners and the hot shots. What I do is not easy. I lean heavily on my community, which brings me about a third of my business, and on people I've worked with over the years.

Alex Zere: And financial services isn't finance. I'm not crunching numbers all day. I'm more comparable to anyone in a service role. It's people: telling your story, talking about your services and asking for the business. It's not a mute job. You may start as a loan officer assistant or an analyst and work your way up. If you like people, you're ambitious and you want an entrepreneurial job, this is it.

Technology and the Future of the Industry

Taryell Simmons: With fintech, I think the industry will grow even more. What does the future hold for your industry, especially for folks who look like me and you?

Alex Zere: Financial services is being disrupted by technology like everything else, and in the shorter term by COVID and the war in Ukraine, which affect how much it costs to borrow money. When I was a bank teller twelve or thirteen years ago, there were fifteen of us on the teller line. In that same office now, you might get helped by two. In the seven years I've done this, the biggest home loan originators went from Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Chase to Rocket Mortgage and United Wholesale Mortgage, the companies advertising to you during football and the NBA playoffs.

Alex Zere: Someone like me or Irvin eats what we kill. Because my production comes from relationships and past clients, it's hard to automate me away, since I bring clients to the lenders. For the retail loan officer I used to be, the writing is more on the wall. To a big bank, that role is an expense. I take more risk now without the same benefits, but my upside is higher, and I bring value to the twenty-three or twenty-four lenders we work with at no overhead to them.

Taryell Simmons: Technology will bring more competition, but the human side won't go away. It's still customer service. Technology can't make me feel heard, listened to and trusted the way a person can.

The Power of Relationships and Where to Find Alex

Taryell Simmons: What's one good lesson life has taught you?

Alex Zere: The power of relationships. Relationships are ultimately what make life worth it, and human beings are relational creatures. I'm fortunate to use the relationships I have, and I mean that in a good way: you do your part, it goes both ways, and friendship and fellowship come out of the professional relationships. I have a son now, and I think about the care I give him when he's in need. If I can try my best to see every person I interact with as someone in need, knowing that I'm in need too, that's what life is about: taking care of people and having people take care of you.

Taryell Simmons: I fully second that. When everyone gives something to a relationship, you foster a win-win. What projects are you working on, and where can people find you?

Alex Zere: The company is Stronger Lending. I should have said that at the beginning. You can go to strongerlending.com. I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn as Alex Zere, and on Instagram at Stronger Lending or my personal page, azsandiego. My project for the rest of 2022 is those three pillars: sales, marketing and business development. We're licensed in California, Texas, Florida and Arizona, and I'd love to take care of you if you have a need. And for Black people and people of color, the power of financial services, especially on the advice side, is that you build your own business model. We should be disproportionately encouraged to enter financial services, because we're disproportionately underrepresented, and you'll be able to take care of your community at a higher level.

Taryell Simmons: Those are gems. When I say wealth, I mean wholeness: financial health, physical health and mental health. It takes finances to build that for yourself and your family, so enter these circles and, if it's your passion, build your own business to help your community. Alex, my man, thank you for blessing us. If you were driving, I'll put all of Alex's information in the show notes. Until next time, take care of yourself and those around you.

Alex Zere: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.