Onetrust Reverse Mortgage Leader Gabe Bodner On Personal Branding Tactics

At this week’s Reverse Mastermind Summit in Tennessee, Gabe Bodner of OneTrust Home Loans gave a detailed presentation on how reverse mortgage originators can achieve better marketing results. A key takeaway is that loan officers need to build a support system for these tasks rather than trying to go it alone.

Bodner joined OneTrust in late 2024 and has more than 20 years of industry experience, with prior stops at Fairway Home Mortgage and Cherry Creek Mortgage. HousingWire’s Reverse Mortgage Daily was at the summit to capture his remarks, which are summarized below and edited for clarity.

‘I believe we are the product’

I’m here to talk about personal branding, but I took note of a couple things from this event already. Shannon Hicks talked about being curious versus being able to explain the product. Dan Hultquist said the secret is personal relationships. Christina Harmes talked about storytelling. Lisa Moriello talked about the importance of taking responsibility and owning your business.

George Vrban talked about building trust and that’s almost entirely what my presentation is about. Selling is about a transfer of positive energy — and to feel good about the product you sell, you should have trust, energy and consistency. Here’s the reality: In today’s market, especially with reverse mortgages, we’re not just selling a product. I believe we are the product.

No one, I assure you, is closing a reverse mortgage because of the rate sheet. No top producer in this room is winning a deal because they’ve got the best rate. They’re choosing you because they’re trusting you to guide them through this process, which can be complicated. The product can be complicated, and once again, they’re trusting you to guide them through this process.

In my opinion, the goal is to be remembered, trusted and referred to. That’s where branding comes in. So let’s start with something simple: Branding is not something new that you have to learn. It’s everywhere, every day, in our lives. What do you feel when you see the Nike logo? Action, motivation. What about Costco? You can’t get out of there without a huge amount of bulk items. Toyota? It’s all about reliability.

When you look at these brands and that feeling, it’s not complicated, and it’s truly happening whether you control it or not. That’s what branding actually is — it’s not the logo, it’s not the colors, it’s the feeling that people have and what they actually expect from you.

Most of us don’t have the luxury of a big bank’s brand name. Loan officers at big banks borrow trust from that brand. But for us as reverse mortgage loan officers, not only do we not have trust, there’s also distrust in both our product and us as people. So we have to establish that trust — and we have to establish it immediately.

How to get the ball rolling

Let me give you a very simple, three-part framework. Don’t overcomplicate this. It’s really about three things: visibility, consistency and credibility. If people don’t see you, you just don’t exist. If you show up differently every single time, no one remembers you. And with credibility, if people don’t trust you, none of it actually matters.

If I ask your top referral partner how they would introduce you to a prospective client, what do you want them to say? You offer the lowest rates? Absolutely not. For me, I want people to say I’m educational, relationship driven and straightforward. What are your three words? If you have not defined them, you need to.

This is where people get stuck, because they think they have to do everything. I started with a weekly newsletter. You can repurpose content. I take my weekly newsletter and I create a podcast. I also use that newsletter to write for my local newspaper. After a year and a half of writing for the paper, I took all that content and wrote a book.

You do not have to do everything at once, but you do have to pick one or two things and do them consistently. Here’s the other key: Do what you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy writing, don’t start writing, because you’re not going to be consistent. If you don’t like being in front of a camera, don’t start doing YouTube videos, because you’re not going to be consistent. Do what you enjoy that will allow you to be consistent.

Why are most loan officers not doing all of this? People don’t have time or marketing support. They don’t know where to start. They don’t have systems. They might have company compliance concerns.

There’s a lot of people in this room, I believe, who can help you get where you want to be. You need website support, advertising, social media, CRM systems, content creation. REVERSE plus and Reverse Focus have great technology and great support. When this is in place, branding actually becomes relatively simple. It allows you to be consistent and ultimately scale your business to a place where George Vrban has gotten.

The question is, are you being intentional about your brand or is the market defining it for you? In my honest opinion, the LOs who will be successful in the next five years won’t be those with the best interest rates. It will be the people who are known and trusted.