Equity Prime Mortgage’s Eddy Perez Shares Leadership Tips in Lending, Leadership, and Life Vlog Series

EPM’s CEO Eddy Perez explores the make-up of effective business leaders.

Equity Prime Mortgage’s co-founder Eddy Perez is widely recognized in the mortgage space for having personally closed over 3,000 loans and managing EPM’s expansive teams of expert underwriters. Eddy has won a series of awards, secured a Certified Mortgage Banker (CMB) designation, and taken prestigious places on boards of directors for leading housing councils and programs. Keen to share his leadership expertise, Eddy has also recently launched a vlog series exploring his Lending, Leadership, and Life tips, designed to empower leaders who are looking to improve their management skills in the mortgage arena. These are 10 of the tips that Eddy shares in his mini-series.

1) Honor Commitments Where Possible

One of Eddy’s biggest beliefs is that leaders should always prioritize honoring commitments, a priority that goes hand in hand with showing respect to your team and other contacts. However, Eddy highlights that sometimes it isn’t possible to honor a commitment. In this case, he emphasizes that it’s important to let anyone involved know as far in advance as possible. For example, when a meeting runs over, meaning you won’t be able to attend your next commitment on time, it’s a good idea to take a minute to text, email, or call the people affected to apologize.

2) Aim To Be a Great Leader and Mentor

Eddy reminds his teams that great leaders are also great teachers, mentors, and coaches. Leadership isn’t just about organizing projects and ensuring that processes run seamlessly. It’s also about identifying each team member as an individual and enriching their development by actively showing them how to progress and develop their skill sets. Mentors come in all shapes and sizes, but they all set life-changing examples that help to define a budding entrepreneur’s success mindset.

3) Improve Your Time Management

While each person has the same number of hours in a day, some people frequently struggle to ‘find time’ for bonus activities. Eddy explains that it’s always worth looking for ways to find time to enjoy the activities that will help you to grow most. For example, you might not think you have time to fit in reading those self-development books, but by trimming time off your lunch break or setting your alarm half an hour earlier, you could probably find the time to make room for this.

4) Add a Personal Touch

While many advise keeping your work life and personal life separate at all times, Eddy suggests that giving your work a personal touch gives your team, leads, and contacts a realistic view of who you are personality-wise. This transparent approach makes you more personable and can help when it comes to developing strong business relationships. Eddy advises that adding a human touch to your corporate communications can help you to build effective rapport.

5) Give Back To Those Who Helped You

Lots of entrepreneurs describe themselves as ‘self-made’, but Eddy encourages leaders to think about the level of truth in this description. Most entrepreneurs have been inspired by someone—or even a few people. Whether it’s a parent, friend, business mentor, or former employer, ‘giving back’ is crucial to show the people who helped you achieve your goals that you appreciate them. This doesn’t have to be a costly endeavor; a simple thank you for their support goes a long way.

6) Practice Public Speaking

Eddy notes that leaders often need to present to others and may experience great difficulty and/or anxiety in doing so. Lots of people aren’t comfortable with public speaking, but Eddy’s mini talk on the matter helps leaders to push through this barrier. Eddy advises preparing content that you’re certain your audience will be interested in, bringing out your passion to spark motivation, and empathizing with the audience to show you understand and care about their pain points. With an appropriate level of preparation and practice, public speaking only gets easier.

7) Encourage Work-Life Balance

Often, employees find that their managers inform their work/life balance, and workload expectations may differ between employees and team leaders. It’s important to keep in mind that a consistently heavy workload can cause a whole string of cumulative mental health issues, leading to burnout. Eddy reminds his followers that leaders should encourage work-life balance and let their teams know that they deserve well-earned time off to enjoy special events and hobbies. All staff should feel entitled to a vacation to recharge before returning to work refreshed and ready to continue with projects.

8) Operate an Open-Door Policy

Eddy highlights the value of operating an open-door policy to build strong relationships with your team. When you leave your door open, you’re encouraging your team to check in with you about any concerns, but also about the successes that they’d like you to celebrate with them. It can be hugely beneficial to close down the idea that you’re too busy to communicate with your team. After all, communication is an essential part of a leader’s role. If you truly are too busy to find time now and again, there’s much to be said for having an appointment scheduling process in place. Wherever you can encourage communication, you’re encouraging transparency and trust.

9) Embrace Healthy Fear

Eddy explains that fear is a double-edged sword that leaders should embrace with caution. Fear can hold you back, but there are ways that you can overcome it to become a stronger leader. Once you have identified your fear, Eddy suggests that knowledge can be the key to overcoming this fear. By becoming a thought leader in your niche, you can harness knowledge as power, whether you’re worried about public speaking, advising clients, or managing a team. When you work on overcoming fear by developing your knowledge and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you can accept your ‘failures’ as experiences that help you to grow in the long run.

10) Seek Employee Feedback

Eddy recognizes that the importance of listening cannot be underrated. When leaders listen to employee feedback, they can implement the necessary changes to nurture healthier corporate cultures. Eddy encourages Equity Prime Mortgage employees to complete anonymous surveys, which remove any barriers to honesty and therefore yield transparent results. With 100% honest feedback from his team, Eddy can consistently improve EPM’s culture and foster healthy teams of collaborative employees.

You can follow Eddy Perez’s Lending, Leadership, and Life vlog here.

About Equity Prime Mortgage

Equity Prime Mortgage is a national mortgage lender that serves over 49 states with its industry-leading approach and high-quality lending resources. Dedicated to empowerment and empathy-driven lending services, Equity Prime Mortgage aims to deliver the needs of all home-buyers, offering 203K, VA, Conventional, FHA, Reverse, and USDA loans. EPM is also a trusted Freddie Mac, Fannie Mac, and Ginnie Mae seller.

EPM is recognized for its multitude of charitable partnerships and contributions. As a big believer of ‘giving back’, EPM donates to USO, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, American Red Cross, the American Diabetes Association, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Read more about Equity Prime Mortgage at www.equityprime.com.