The Power Hour: How Showing Up Beats Every Shortcut in Title Sales | Ep 104

In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Choumil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Title Agents Podcast. I am your host, Mo Choumil, CEO of Alltech National Title.

Today, I have a pleasure of having David Bravo Jr., CEO of Alltech. I'm sorry, not Alltech, but CEO of, uh— Hey man, don't announce it yet. Don't announce it yet. It's yours. All right.

I guess, uh, he's going to have to buy my company now. The CEO of Monarch Title Company and a founder of Title Reps Only and the author of Title Bible and Title Bible 2.0. Welcome, David. Thank you for having me, Moi. I'm really excited to have you today and it's going to be fun.

For those watching on video, it looks like I'm sunburned. I'm going through this facial treatment thing. So just know I didn't fall asleep on the beach or anything like that. You sure it's not that surfing in California? Damn, he looks like he's Faking baking.

Yeah, that's not— it's this facial thing I got going on. Anyways. Well, to kick it off, give us a little background about you, your life, your story, your family, all that fun stuff. Family first, man. You know, I don't say that lightly.

Amen. Again, I don't really care about the title side if it's not for first and foremost, I try to be the best son I can possibly be, the best dad I can be, and the best husband. The title stuff is kind of cool and Monarch and TRO and, you know, all these other things going on. But first and foremost, man, I'm just, I'm a dad, I'm a son, and I'm a husband as well. So I'm celebrating 20 years of marriage coming up.

We have 5 beautiful kids. We have 2 daughters in heaven. And I come from, you know, some incredible parents. You know, what you see is not like really me taking the reins. I I happen to be very, very blessed of being the son of 2 incredible people, my mom and my dad.

So that's kind of me in a nutshell. That's awesome. So tell us where you live and where you are. Woodlands, California. I have no idea where that is.

I know it's somewhere near LA. Yes, I live— our office is in Glendale, California, right here in Title Row. What county is it? What county is it? Orange County?

LA County. LA County. Okay. Yeah, LA County. But I live in South Orange County in San Clemente.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, down there. I was just going to give our audience a visual where you are. Surf country, coolest part of town in the country. Yeah, San Clemente, it's a cool, it's just like a little beachy town, a little surfer town.

I love it. It's got great weather. It's known allegedly for the best climate in the world. So that's awesome. San Clemente, and I'm here in Glendale.

So, well, you grew up in a title and real estate household. Both your parents were in the business. When you walked into United Title at 18, were you stepping in a legacy or trying to build your own? You know, my dad was always in the biz. You know, it's interesting, my name itself, David Bravo Jr., I was always— we have different middle names, so I was David O.

Bravo and he was David M. Bravo. My mom was a broker, my stepmom owned an escrow, my dad was a title legend, still is. And my stepdad did, was a mortgage broker as well. So it was kind of like born in the biz, but I, my dad laid the foundation easily in the title insurance business.

He was an incredible rep for many, many years long before I even got into the biz. And it's funny, when I first got to United Title, I was David O. Bravo. It stands for Orion, like the constellation, the hunter. And he was David M.

Bravo, David Martin, but After a couple months, man, he kept getting credit for my orders. So that's literally, that's when I like became like David Bravo Jr. so they can decipher one's junior and one's senior. So pretty cool. But that's right.

United Title was a great company, by the way. Kelly Nuno was the county manager. Great title officers right there on Chateau Place in downtown Los Angeles. So who shaped you on how you think about this business and what did they teach you that you still use today? I'm going to assume your dad and maybe some other people as well in the company.

My family always had, like, my parents always had really, really good intentions of shaping me, but it wasn't until— so when you grow up in the business, and I knew that the area that I was working in sales, we had 31st cousins and I had, you know, And I mean, and they were all in real estate or mortgage or title or everything. So like coming into the business was very easy for me. It was very easy to be like relatively like successful. And then when you start in '99, the years '02, '03, '04 start coming up, like those are incredible years. Yeah.

And so I have to be like completely honest, I was working 2 days a week, just hanging out, you know, closing, you know, $50 grand a month. But it wasn't, it wasn't me. I wasn't really working. It was just the market. And just because we had the name and these relationships, but it wasn't until I got my, my teeth kicked in, man, after the recession.

Oh, '07, '08. Oh, that shaped everything for me. That changed my life and changed my path. I share this sometimes when I'm speaking, like I short sold my house. I've had cars repossessed.

I filed bankruptcy. But in that process, I realized how lucky I was to be in this beautiful business called title. And I was simply taking it for granted. The whole time. So it wasn't until, like, again, I got my butt kicked, did I realize, like, what am I doing, man?

I've been hanging out all along. And that changed me. That was before the recession, Bravo Jr., and then after the recession, I wrote a letter to my dad called The Culmination. I said, Dad, I get it. I get it now.

And it took me getting my butt kicked doing some side businesses that I realized how lucky I was to be in this business. And I told him, I said, I promise you, I'm never going to work as hard as I'm about to work for the rest of my life. And kind of born in blood, man, when you have to move your wife and son into your mom's house, it's a humbling experience. And then you go and buy your $13,000 Toyota Yaris and get rid of your Beamer, you know, and you don't have a home anymore. Like, it's a humbling experience, but it kind of leads to a fork in the road.

Like, you can either sit there and feel sorry for yourself, Or you can get at it, you know, and that became the birth of like the real Bravo Jr. And I started having my best years in title in '09, '10, '11, and those years sucked. And meanwhile, I'm just going the other way because you realize it's not the market, man. It's me and what I do every single day. And if anyone, you know, is listening to this, please hear those words again.

It's not the market. I don't care if the interest rates are down or up, or it doesn't matter. But what you do every single day, those hours that you put in and you can make 'em effective and efficient, that's going to be the secret to success regardless of what the hell's happening with the market. When you change your trajectory individually, nothing matters, and that allows you to achieve really, really lifelong success. And so that was kind of like the birth of Bravo Jr., which you see today.

Was that the defining moment? You mentioned you filed bankruptcy, lost your car, and all this kind of— I remember those days and having to lay off 30 people. in one Friday. So is that defining moment kind of made you turn things around or some people just literally just hunker down and just coast it or change careers, but you stuck it through? What was that defining moment?

You know, and it was it. It was a lot of self-reflection. You know, I remember moving a storage to my dad's house, a moving truck with a bunch of crap, you know what I mean, from our house. And I started crying and I said, I messed up, Pop. You know, I messed up, man.

You know, when you get kind of kicked in the teeth like that, it's a humbling experience. And then we moved into my mom's house and here we are. We had a 2,600-square-foot house. It was a beautiful house in a gated community in San Dimas. And I looked then to like, I'm moving my wife and son now into my mom's, you know, guest bedroom.

And my son Johnny would sleep like on the floor at a pull-up mattress underneath our bed. And like, you know how you always hear like motivational— Yeah. And to go from some relative like success You know, to like basically starting all over. That was the defining moment. And again, you can say like, okay, I can just sit here and curl up into the fetal position and cry, or I can get out of it.

I can get out of this, you know? And there's a lot of like self-reflection there where you say it's the only people or the only like person that's going to bring me out of this little dungeon that I buried myself in is me. And I remember I shaved my head. It was like my commitment cut to myself and what I was going to do. And I started working.

And that, by the way, gave birth to the Power Hour. That gave birth to the Power Hour, and that gave birth to making 15 calls a day. And then I started learning how to be more efficient and effective. That gave birth to using TextBlast and Sly Broadcast and all these different apps. So When you have all these, you know, success leaves clues, like when you have, you know, someone who's clocking in, you know, every single day at 8:00 AM, you know, putting in an hour to client retention and client acquisition, and then is going to make, you know, 15, 20 calls a day until as long as it takes, not until 5, like until as long as it takes.

And then you start, you know, adopting some tech into that, like And so I, when I go back in my life, that was it, man. Those years. And it's funny because those are the most challenging years and yet they're the most rewarding. You know, I needed to get scuffed up. And because if I don't get scuffed up, then I'm just hanging out, being lazy, working 2 days a week, you know, just cruising by.

Coasting. Coasting, man. Yeah. So I'm honestly, I'm grateful for that time because that changed everything about me. That's beautiful.

I vividly remember those days and I was literally hitting the street, like just to go and knock. It's often by Bank of America branches, Wells Fargo's brokerages. I was the only one knocking on doors. Nobody else was. So the mortgage office had like one deal that week.

I got that deal. Nobody else did. Because nobody else, everybody's hunkering down or— Empowering, right? You like when, again, the self-realization when you could be honest with yourself and say it's not the market. It's me.

It's me. And these are some of the true traits I carry with Monarch Title, like today. It's not, I don't care about the market strength, man. We can be successful in any market. It's about how we're going to lock arms, how we're going to show up every single day, and how we're going to get at it.

So you built Title Reps Only into a movement of thousands of reps that depend on it. When you started it, were you thinking legacy or that came later? What do you want it to mean 20 years from now or 10 years from now? Well, first off, you described it as a movement, and that's like one of the biggest compliments I can ever give to that group as well. Like, it really is a movement.

So like, I've had the privilege of working with all the major companies in this industry. And what you find is, you know, the industry has a habit of like putting horns on you, putting— I'm sorry, putting horns on the competitor, right? Like, you look across at your competition in sales and you're like, oh, I hate that guy. He's trying to get my business. And you look across at that other company like, I hate them.

I hate what they stand for. We're better than them, blah, blah, blah. It's a silly kind of small mindset that I've never really enjoyed. And so when you get the opportunity, which I've had to work at different companies, you take a step back and you realize like every company has good people, right? Absolutely.

They're not the enemy. They're trying to feed their families just like everyone else is, right? And so when you change those optics on that, like he's not trying to take my business or take my No, no, no, no. He has kids too. Like, they're just doing their job.

And so, you know, when you take a step back and realize, look at across the industry, I've had the opportunity and the privilege to connect with like some incredible people at every single company that I've ever worked with. That's F&F, that's Old Republic, that's Stewart Title. Like, there's incredible people everywhere, right? So when I had the opportunity, it's COVID, it's March 22nd, 2020. California's on absolute lockdown, man.

We're sitting in our PJs drinking wine, if everyone remembers that. Oh yeah. And like, I'm a bridge builder, man. Like, that's what I do. And so I said like, God, we're all kind of bored here.

Like, it'd be kind of fun for everyone to just like say what's up to each other and check in with each other, right? So I started that Facebook group. I invited like 20 of my title rep friends in LA and SoCal. And next thing you know, they invited. Next thing you know, we spread into Nevada and Arizona and then Texas, and it reached 1,000 members really quickly.

And I remember telling my wife, I said, shoot, man, that's pretty awesome. I think this is a great group. And then now we're almost at 5,000 members. What I love most about Title Reps Only is there's no company, there's no territory, And there's no walls. I hate walls, man.

And I love the opportunity just for people to interact and talk, right? Ask for help, ask for a referral. We have so many people that say like, hey, is there anyone in, you know, random parts of Texas? And people would chime in like, yeah, I'm here. What do you need?

And they may just need a copy of a deed or something. But how cool is that, man? Just to, again, connect the industry. It really is a movement, and the more that we can level up together, the better. A really, really good friend of mine, Sam Trimble, says it best, man, rising tides raise all ships.

And I couldn't say it even better myself. So that's Title Reps Only. So you're often introduced as the youngest Latino CEO in title. So leading a minority title company, how does that mean to you personally? But, you know, my, my, both my parents were born in Mexico.

My mom was born in Durango, Mexico, and she came to this country when she was 5. And my dad, we just found out from 23andMe, he was adopted, but it turns out my dad was also born in Mexico. You know, so, you know, when you come from these roots, and I guarantee you have a story, like, again, the American spirit many times, and the American dream is based upon those simple stories. You know, and again, I think as a country, it's easy to put the horns on, oh, immigration. But guess what, man?

Like, that's how our country was founded. And believe me, I say, well, let's do it the right way and let's go through the right process. But make no mistake, there's something to be said about, you know, being a part of the American dream. And we don't get to choose who we're born to. You know, we don't get to choose.

For all I know, I could have been born in Brazil or born in China. Like, we don't have that choice. So it just so happened, you know, I was born to immigrant parents and how beautiful the fighting spirit that my mom has, right? And the journey that my dad went through, like, it's incredible. So, so part of like, you know, some things that I hold near and dear to my heart, like the real Bravo Jr., what I hold, I'll be damned if my grandparents, you know, didn't take these journeys and leave their families and leave their homes, the comfort of their own homes for a better life of their kids.

Right. And for me to squander that away, like, what a disservice to them. You think about all the generations before us, right, to get to this point, to finally, finally put us in a simple position to succeed in life and be an American, be in California, right, and have this incredible opportunity to start a business or to make more money than people would ever dream of. Right. And for us to piss away that opportunity Really pisses me off.

So that, that, that's something that, that's a pressure that nobody knows about. It's my job to be successful because guess what? My parents sacrificed way, way too much for me not to be successful. That's just pride. And I don't want to turn this too political, but it really kind of breaks my heart.

Or when people start saying like, oh, this Latino is taking our jobs, they're lazy, they're taking advantage of the system. Like, show me one Latino person that's not hardworking you met in your life. I've never met one. One of the hardest working people. I mean, I don't, I've never met one that's just sitting there collecting whatever.

It's an amazing culture at the work. We're not going to get political, but there's so many other cultures, right? You know what I mean? And then that's, there's something to be said. There's plenty of literature written about the immigrant mindset.

You know what I mean? And Gary Vee— I'm first generation, so— There you go, man. And, but the most important thing I want to convey is, and I don't care where you're from, You could be born and bred American and freaking in whatever, Dallas, Texas. I don't care. The whole objective to this, that me touching on that is the opportunity before us, right?

To succeed in life. What a disservice not to give it all we got. Right. And that's when I look at Bravo Jr. before the recession and I didn't like that guy at all.

I was ashamed of that guy. That guy was working twice a week, hanging out. You know, and it was like, that guy sucked. The new Bravo Jr., like, get at it and put his work in. You know, that's what should be represented regardless of where you're from, regardless of your history.

Like, your parents and generations before us have put us in the position to succeed. And I don't care if you're— you grew up in a farm family in West Texas or you come from immigrant families, right? There's very few people that I know that come from privilege. Right? So now what do we have to do?

We have to take the bull by the horns, man, and get at it. That's what life's all about. So the title rep of 1999 and the rep of this year, 2026, are almost different jobs. What's changed the most and what stayed exactly the same? So social media, that's the biggest thing, right?

So you see the opportunity, and I call it an opportunity of social media, right? And stuff like we're doing today, we can do this. This didn't exist in 1999. The fact that we're on a video call, Right? Zooming together, that's going to be a podcast, right?

And then connecting on social media, like, and LinkedIn and all these different things. Like, we can do that in '99. That simply didn't exist. So I think the opportunities right now to connect with anyone anywhere, like, is abundant. And you have to know that.

So if you're a sales rep or a company, like, you can connect with every single top realtor in your backyard. And you couldn't do that in '99. You'd have to go find them and go try to go to their office and meet them. You simply couldn't do that. Now the opportunity to connect with anyone everywhere, we can do that.

So start looking at like, again, tech as an opportunity to connect, to hopefully grow our business. Now, what hasn't changed? Showing up, man. And I don't care. You can like— it's interesting.

I presented on this and I think I wrote it in the book as well. Like, there's so much tech and I love tech. And even at Monarch Title, we have every freaking app now you can ever dream of, right? We have all these tools and we have everything. Right?

We have this and we have that. All there are is, you know, no offense to all the tech out there, like a lot of it is just fluff. Like unless you're bringing value to the team, it's all just fluff. But you know what matters that hasn't changed in the business since '99 is showing up. How about we show up?

And I don't care if it's showing up to the offices and making your one-on-ones and showing up and being present, showing up by answering your phone when a customer calls. Showing up by wishing and being proactive, saying congratulations to listings taken, like literally on a simple phone call, showing up on people's birthdays, write them a card, make them a call, do something, right? So it's just being present. And I think that a lot of people get confused with like, oh, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I'm posting, I'm doing this, I'm doing these reels and stuff like that. Like, guess what?

I could walk away from all social media whatsoever. Right? And I can get my little box of business cards and that's all I need. Like, and I, you can get rid of every tool that I even have, every app that I even have, and guess what? I'll still outwork you and I'll still beat you on the field because guess what?

I'm simply going to show up every single day. So that's one of my biggest things. If anyone can hear that and take away, you got to show up, man, every single day. Awesome. So you wrote the Title Bible, then Title Bible 2.0, What did you have to rewrite between the two?

What did the industry outgrow? So there was a lot of— so the Title Bible 1.0, you know, it's— I was a sales manager at Old Republic Title, and I remember we brought someone new in the biz, and I started outlining him. Literally, I said, okay, this guy knows nothing about this business whatsoever. And I started outlining like my bullet points of what it would take to be successful. And so when I started writing this outline, I started adding detail and adding detail, and I said, shoot, man, you know what?

Our industry doesn't have like a Title 101 sales book for title reps. And that gave birth to, yeah, the Title Bible, you know, kind of 1.0. I have it here, man. It's pretty cool. The 1.0 though, this is like my baby, man.

Anyways, it was 100 pages, I think, exactly. Whatever it was. And look at this little guy, look at how little it is. So, but that, like, that was so cool. I, this, this thing didn't even sell like 100 copies, by the way.

It didn't even, I don't even think it sold 50 copies, but guess what? I probably, I probably mailed out on my own for free to like people in the biz, probably 500 of them, right? If it can help someone out there, like, hell yeah, I don't care. I'll send it to you for free. Just do me a favor.

Like, don't let it go to waste. I'm going to give you all that I got. Title Bible 2.0 is more of an updated version and in detail what's changed, what hasn't changed, and then stuff that I would add into it like social selling and tech. But I think they're cool, man. I don't make any money off of this book, by the way.

Yeah, I wrote it because again, I believe in if there's someone out there, I don't care if you're in Florida, brand new sales rep in Florida, like if If this book can help you get through these first few years and become a success, good on you, man. That's why I wrote this book. So when I get these messages like, hey, I read your book, man. I started doing this, this, and that, and guess what? It's working.

And I'm like, yeah, thank God. Yeah. Yes, it all works. You just got to do it and show up. So that's why I wrote the book.

Hopefully give it back to the industry. I can't wait to read it myself. I'm going to order a few copies and share them with our sales team. So every title agent I talk to is somewhere between excited and terrified about AI. You're a systems guy at your core.

Is automation a threat to relationship-driven rep or the best thing that's ever happened to them? You know, first off, we have to obviously embrace it. I think the whole world has to embrace it, you know, but I would argue, you know, it's probably a different path. So, you know, at Monarch Title, right, we're looking at AI, you know, making many of our reps' lives easier, right? How can we find opportunities and efficiencies just to create that whole backend flow, just to automate everything?

But that being said, there's nothing that's going to change the individual relationships that we have with our customers. So I look at it absolutely as a tool to automate many of your marketing, right? Many of your connectivity. But at the end of the day, dude, if you're not going to show up, then you're not going to succeed in this business. And I would even argue, so I had the privilege of, they wrote an article here.

Look at, dude, this is like, what is this, Promo Monday? Here you go. They wrote an article on the Title Report and it says, don't discount the power of a simple phone call. It says, growing title for growing revenue. It says, CEO, in a world of apps and tech and AI, there's something to be said about the individual connectivity.

Right? I would go the other way. I would show up to offices more right now, more than ever, right? I've had one— I'd have one-on-one meetings more than ever right now for the personal connectivity. And then I do my freaking power hour.

So that article is basically about the power hour, right? The difference between someone sending a DM for happy birthday versus picking up the phone and letting them hear the authenticity in your voice and wishing them well. Right? Congratulating your clients on their newest listing, not via text, not via email, right? That's going to go spammed out, but literally pick up the phone and let them hear you say, hey, congratulations on that new listing.

It's a beautiful home. I hope it sells quickly. Like, that's it. And that's something that AI can't do, right? So I truly believe we're still the drivers of our business.

And at the end of the day, I don't care what AI does, it's still a person-to-person relationship and we gotta focus on that. So to my personal view, and as we spoke last week, like we're big on AI, but the whole purpose of the whole automation and AI is to really free up people to have more time to talk, to answer their phones. Like one of the biggest complaints, especially operations, people don't answer the phone. Like, well, how can we take so much, as much workload as possible? It's like, hey, you pick up the phone, you call people back, so you just have that human touch.

That's it. You're totally right on the money. I think there's a revolt, man, in this world. Not right now because we have to go through this whole automation process, but make no mistake, I think that— I was just reading an article on my way to the office this morning about the comeback potentially of analog, the comeback of drive-in movie theaters, the comeback of all these like personal, like grassroots connectivity that people have that people will start missing. And I think we're seeing flickers of that now.

You know, it can make my coffee, but guess what? I want the opportunity to be in a room with 20 people, like, you know, and just talking and meeting people. That interaction, I think we'll always crave that and we'll always need that. Yeah. Can we go back to the, you mentioned power hour a couple times and I don't know what that means.

What does that mean for you? How does it, is there a proper structure? Is it a format? Can you talk our audience to like the, so they hear how you do it and Sure. So I'll give you the quick version.

So I'm sitting with my shave head and my Toyota Yaris in Starbucks, and I committed to my family every day I'm going to show up at 8:00 AM dressed up and ready to go. And I realized my customers weren't open until 9:00. So I'm sitting there and I'm like, shoot, I got this hour to spend. So I'd go to Starbucks, you know, and I just, I'd sit there and I'd order my latte and order my latte every single day. And so I was like, okay, I have this hour, what can I do with it?

So I first started with saying thank you, and I didn't send an email, I didn't send a text. Like, I'd pick up the phone and every single deal that I opened and closed the day previous, I'd call them and I'd say, hey, thank you so much, Keri, for the transaction you closed with us. Thank you so much, Michael. I appreciate you, man. Thank you so much.

And if people answered, awesome. If they didn't answer, I'd leave them a voicemail. And so I started always, and I always do, man, with an attitude of gratitude. So like, I would connect with everyone and just say thank you. And you'll be shocked at what the responses back, like, came back.

Oh my God, thank you so much for reaching out. By the way, we have another deal. I have another one coming your way. And so it felt great. And then I was like, okay, what else can I do?

So I started calling birthdays. You know, I said, instead of again sending them a DM or a text or an email, like, why don't I just call them and say happy birthday? Now you can do this better than ever on Facebook. Right? I'd pick up the phone and say, hey, Jesse, how you doing?

I just want to reach out, man. Today's your special day. Happy birthday. Just want to wish you the greatest day ever and an even better year. And people, oh my God, thank you so much.

You called me before my even mom called me, man. That's awesome. Thank you. You made my day. Like, that was it right there.

So the effectiveness of the connectivity, again, by picking up the phone. So first, thank yous. Next, birthdays. And then I started like being proactive. I said, okay, well, let me start calling like the agents on the other side of a transaction.

It's referred to sometimes as NDC, the non-directing agent, whatever, the agent on the other side. And I'd call and introduce myself. I'd say, hey, this is David Bravo Jr. with Monarch Title. I just want to make sure you had my contact information.

I have the privilege of working with you on 123 Maple Street. This is my cell phone. You call me 24/7 if you need anything at all. I just want to make sure that I'm available to you in this transaction. Ah, I appreciate that.

Thank you so much. No one's ever reached out before, right? And so I started connecting with the other side so much more efficiently and effectively just by making a call. And then finally, I'd congratulate every single listing that came in my backyard. Hey Mo, this is David Bravo Jr.

Monarch Title. I just want to say congratulations on the property and the new listing you have on 5th Street. It's a beautiful home. I hope it sells quickly. Wow.

Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Who's this again? This is David Bravo Jr., Monarch Title. Well, thank you so much.

It's actually my cousin's house and I think it's priced right and hopefully it sells really, really quickly. Well, congratulations. What are we doing? What am I doing right there? Like, I'm having a conversation with someone, right?

And by the way, let me be clear. Like, I'm not, I'm not saying, hey, let me open your prelim. Hey, can I get you a farm? Can I order you labels? Can I do this?

No, no, no, no, no. Let me just start with just saying congratulations and see where the conversation goes. Okay. That right there, dude, became my power hour. That was a game changer in my entire career.

And you'll be shocked how, how, and I've said this before, I'll take my 1 hour versus your 8 any day. I'll take my 1 hour on customer retention and customer acquisition versus your 8 any day, right? And you'll be shocked of that connectivity, how incredible it feels, right? When you have a successful 8 to 9 AM, what an incredible day you're going to have, right? When you win the morning, when you win that hour, it's impossible not to have a tremendous day for the rest of that day.

And then you rinse and repeat every single day. And that's my baby. That's my power hour. That's awesome. A huge chunk of this industry is heading for retirement and decades of judgment walk out the door with them.

Can systems and AI actually capture what a general escrow officer or rep knows, or is some of that just uncoachable? That's so tough. And I do agree with you. And I think that it's an industry challenge, not just title insurance industry, but even the real estate industry. And this is why, again, I love the personal connectivity and I don't— AI's going to come in and do its thing.

That's fine. But when you look at the average seller right now in the industry, in America, the average age of the seller is 61, right? The average age of the realtor is also 60. I don't see them connecting with AI and just giving over their files and their real estate transactions. Anytime in the near future.

What could that look 20 years from now? Maybe. But right now it simply doesn't scare me. We're not going to see a flip of switch and all of a sudden AI is just going to shut down every title company because they're going to automate it. Home sellers out there who are 61 years old aren't going to deal with an AI app to close the biggest investment of their lives, right?

Flat out. Realtors who are average age is 60, according to NAR, aren't going to just simply like adopt this app and this escrow app to AI automate their most important transaction that they have. It's just not going to happen. Do I think that there's going to be changes? Absolutely.

Do I think it's going to take over? No. So the more that we can embrace the true veterans of our industry, the true veterans, the 60 and over, even 70 and over, you know, we have some incredible, we have some people on our staff at Monarch Title who are 40-year vets and 50-year vets. They're invaluable to the company, right? And the more that we can learn as an industry from these absolute Hall of Famers, I would say, the better that we're going to have as far as the longevity of our business.

I would allow them the opportunity to share as much as possible, and I pray that the new generation of our industry Will take note of that, of their 50, 40, 30 years of experience. Take note because they're what's going to— their knowledge and their brains are what's going to get you through the early parts of your career and beyond. So you've made a career out of moving ahead before the market does. What's the bets you're making right now that the rest of the industry hasn't caught up to yet? I was on a Zoom right now with like a data guy.

My bet is the What's the date today? 6/22/2026. I don't think the market changes at all. I think the market's flat. I think it's flat this year.

I think it's flat next year. I think it all looks the same. I don't see any black swan events. As long as we don't go to war or anything like that, there shouldn't be any black swan events. I think the market this year looks like the market next year, and it happens to look like the market last year as well.

So we're kind of flat. And again, I don't get caught up in the market like too much. I get caught up in What can we do right now? Monarch Title has grown regardless of the market. I don't care about the market.

And again, if you're hearing this, like, take the message. Bravo Jr. doesn't care about the market. Bravo Jr. cares about what we do every single day and how we can grow our business, not just maintain, because if you maintain, you're going to lose it.

You just don't know it yet. Attrition, people moving out, people retiring, you're going to lose business. But how can we grow our business every single day? And if you focus on that, Then the market doesn't matter. So the Big 4, who you're competing directly against them in the West Coast, keep getting bigger and bigger, and I think they're getting even bigger.

What do you say to the independent agent who feels like the walls are closing in? Is there still room to win, and how? I love the Big 4, by the way. First American, I love you. They underwrite us.

Old Republic Title, I love you guys. Stewart Title, F&F, some of my best friends are at F&F. I don't care, man. Now, now, you know, have they continued to grow? Absolutely.

But, you know, and I have the privilege, I would say the privilege, if you're anywhere in SoCal, man, and you're hearing this, I have the privilege of competing against the best in the business, the best in the business with unlimited resources, unlimited funds. We're little Monarch Titles competing against billion-dollar conglomerates, like literally. So I have the privilege of competing with them because it forces me to get better. It forces me to— Yeah. To have to compete at a higher level or else I'm out, we're out.

How do I attribute our success in spite of competing against the biggest companies in all the land? It's still a people business, man. It's still, again, like you go back to that connectivity. We're approaching 50 members at Monarch Title. I took over and it's going to be in September, 6 years anniversary.

Wow. A lot of companies, a lot of companies like haven't done any of that. Like, and I attribute like my personal connectivity. Hopefully I do people right. Hopefully I can look upon me with transparency.

These are some of the fibers that my parents instilled with me, man. They will get an honest response from me. And I think if you spend most of my career like with that mindset and with that, those eyes and just respecting All that we all anyone we come in contact with, good things will happen. You know, and to your point, like it's pretty crazy because we our growth has been many times involuntary, but at the expense of some of the biggest companies in the world. And again, you look at them like how can you recruit against them or how can you compete against them?

Well, guess what, man? I believe in relationships, and I love so and I love so and they could probably get something here at Monarch Title. That they couldn't get at the big massive company that they're at, right? Respect, value, seat at the table, a voice at the table, and probably an opportunity to grow as well. And even the biggest company, Fidelity— I love Fidelity, F&F.

Bill Foley, for those that are listening and go on the F&F website, man, Bill Foley was a small title agent in Tucson before Fidelity. Fidelity, F&F, Fidelity National Financial acquired a title agent, a small company. And at this small company resided Bill Foley. And then Bill Foley came to be. But make no mistake, just hearing those stories show what's possible in our industry.

The biggest, baddest dude in the entire world, Bill Foley, was a small agent at one point. So don't limit your own self-beliefs. And he's definitely legendary. So about 5 years out, what does a great title company look like and what does a rep's job look like? I know, looking into the future and— I think the same, man.

Like, it's kind of redundant. Like, I'm telling you, like, those that are showing up, you know, and committing to the process, I think 5 years from now, we have a lot of automation with regards to marketing. Right? And potentially even some prospecting in that. But at the end of the day, it's going to require a human being, right, who has the foresight to connect with their customers and meet with them belly to belly and pick up the phone and reach out to them, right?

And make yourselves available and show up every single day. That's what a successful rep is going to look like, just flat out. And again, I don't fear AI at all. You can automate all you want, dude. There's nothing like us having a conversation.

There's nothing like it, and nothing will ever replace that, by the way. It's our human desire. It's our human need of connectivity. That's all we've done since the history of mankind, and we're going to keep on doing that. So I think that's what it looks like, man.

More connectivity. And by the way, the more connectivity someone can have, probably the better case that they're going to be in 5 years from now. So you have an event coming up for TRO, Title Reps Only. It's July 22nd, 23rd. Correct?

Yes, sir. So how can you tell us a little more about it so we can hopefully drop some more traction and some more people showing up? I plan on being there and I cannot wait to meet you in person. Heck yeah. Well, you better be there.

In my humble, humble opinion, I think it's going to be one of the greatest title events put on in our absolute industry because of, again, that it's title reps only. Because of, again, because again, title reps only. We don't have some sort of corporate structure, right? So I've been to all the sales rallies. I've been to all the informative.

And there's a message there that's geared towards, you know, from the company towards the employee, right? There's a message there. And I love all the LTAs, but there's still a message there. Like, what message do we want to convey? You know, I love the fact that we have no walls and I love the fact that we all are going to get in a room and absolutely level up.

We have 12 of, in my opinion, some of the most influential speakers in the entire industry across the nation. Right? From Florida, from Texas, from California, from Arizona, from everywhere, like from Virginia. When you look at the lineup and please research them, like every single one of these speakers is an absolute rock star in their backyard, an absolute rock star. And it's impossible not to surround yourself with that sort of success and that sort of opportunity to learn from the best in the biz without leveling up yourself.

Right? It's been said the proximity to success will increase your own proximity of success, right? Your probability of success. So when you get in that room, I'll be super, super excited, man. There's probably going to be— I don't care if it's 100 of us or 500 of us, like the opportunity to connect with some of the best talent in the industry, it's limitless.

It's going to be— So what are the details? What are the details of the event? Details, website, all that fun stuff. Yeah, just go to Title Reps Only, titlerepsonly.com. It's all there.

Just get to Nashville, Tennessee, beautiful Franklin, July 22nd, 23rd. I'm going to announce we're going to have live music. There's a VIP dinner, which those who want to partake in is going to be absolutely phenomenal. It's 2 days jam-packed with some of the absolute, like, seriously savages and assassins and rock stars of the entire industry. So You got to get there.

That's awesome. Any final words for our audience? You know, again, I, it's, when you reached out initially, I was like, oh, I don't know if I'd feel like doing any podcasts and stuff like that. But I think that podcasts like this, podcasts like TRO and platforms like TRO tear down all the walls, man, and learn from your neighbor, learn from them. This opportunity for us to connect, I thank you for doing this.

I thank you for doing the podcast. Right? I thank you for bringing value to the title insurance industry. It means a lot to even someone like me, man, because we're both on the same side of the fence, like just trying to level up the industry and connect everyone. So my word to everyone is keep building bridges, man.

Learn, learn, learn, learn as much as you can. Find little nuggets everywhere. Join groups, listen to this podcast, and find success and simply start a conversation. I don't care if it's the best rep in your state. I don't care if it's the best rep in your county.

Like, don't be afraid of reaching out to someone who's obviously, you know, been a proven success and taking them to coffee, right? And asking them, what does your day look like? What do you do? What separates you? This exact conversation that we're having, you can do this in your backyard, right?

Success leaves clues. Find those clues and just go out and get at it every single day. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Thank you. Well, that was an awesome conversation with David Bravo Jr. If you like this, this conversation and like the show, please, please, please, and please, and thank you. It's only one request. Please subscribe and most importantly, give us a 5-star review.

Until next time, have a wonderful day. Forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey.