Building Your Wealth Advisory Team to Get More Referrals

Hey Jeff Center here host of the mortgage marketing radio podcast. Thanks for tuning in. This is the place where you as a mortgage professional gets access to the ideas, tools, and resources to help you grow your business with less effort, less struggle, less frustration and become the preeminent mortgage professional in your local market. Today's episode we're going to talk exactly how you can do that. And most importantly, I want to invite you to a free informational webinar that I'm hosting with my special guest today, whom you're going to hear from him in a moment. But before we switch into that, I want to talk to you briefly about a concept, a concept called the upstream model. And my special guest today, Justin Stoddard, wrote the book called the upstream model, which is hidden secrets to build a massive referral business while crushing big tech competitors. Look, let's just face it, the markets influx, the markets always changing, right? And it's not the strongest to survive. It's the most adaptable to change who survive. And I don't often bring, right, platforms and resources and ideas or people to you outside of the norm, unless I'm a firm believer in who they are, first as a person, right? And then secondly, with what they're doing, does it actually move the needle or is it just white noise? Is it signal versus noise? Well, today's conversation with Justin is signal. We're going to talk about the upstream model and we're going to talk about how most originators unfortunately stay stuck if you if you picture a ladder, right? And on the bottom run of that ladder is a solicitor looked upon as someone there to just get something for themselves and then move up from solicitor to vendor, right? Where it's a little bit better than solicitor, but actually it's just a sales relationship. It's based on products, price and those types of things, right? And that's where most originators tend to hang out and lead with as their quote competitive advantage. I got great products. I got great service. I close on time, right? Whatever that thing is. But unfortunately, staying in the category of a vendor doesn't build a true business that thrives, right? It's one that's based on how good but your last loan. Can I get a witness? Is any of this send familiar? What have you done for me lately? My passion and purpose for being here is to help you move from vendor to peer, right? Where you look at with respect as an equal. And then ultimately, as we continue to move upstream, right? You become a peer and a partner and ultimately the pinnacle is you become a mentor and a leader where you're recognized and looked up to as an expert and advisor or consultant, right? Someone who can help solve your partner's biggest challenges. And today, your invitation is to join us to learn more about how my guest, Justin Stoddard and myself have teamed up to bring to the mortgage industry a solution to help you move upstream. If you picture a stream, right? At the top is this stream of clients that comes out and an upstream partner would be somebody like a real estate agent. It would be a tax advisor, it would be a CPA, it would be a wealth estate planner, people like that, right? neighboring industries, right? Whose current clients are your future clients? But when you're stuck in the bucket or on the ring of vendor, right? Picture you standing downstream and you're holding your fishing pole out, trying to catch those random fish that are originating upstream. Well, what if you could actually reverse that? What if you could actually change, pick up your pole, leave downstream and hike yourself up, take a walk upstream to be at the same level of what I call your upstream partner, right? You being a true peer and mentor and leader, helping those partners upstream partner solve problems and challenges. And what drives those upstream partner opportunities? Typically life events, right? Divorce, death, moving, relocation, birth, college, right? Downsizing, upsizing, right? You name it. And look at the secret is, you guys have heard about this for a while, right? This idea of building your family, wealth, advisory team. You've heard of other originators on the podcast, talk about it over the years. Well, now you get to learn exactly how to do it in the system. I don't know if this is for you, but check out this free call that we're going to be doing coming up. I'm going to give you the date time and the link is going to be in the show notes. But Justin and I are doing a free call on Thursday, June 22nd at 10 a.m. Pacific time. It'll be about 30 minutes. That's it. And what we're going to be doing is walking through this concept of, right? Becoming an upstream partner. But more importantly, how you can exclusively in your own area, right? Be the exclusive partner. For these other team members of your wealth advisory team. So we're talking about real estate agent. Of course, we're talking about financial advisor, tax planner, attorneys, CPAs, all the people that are involved in life events and you getting to the top of that stream and winning those opportunities by you partnering with these other professionals. And most importantly, how do you do it? And you don't do it by showing up and, you know, listen, we've all done the B&I. We've done the whole referral network thing. We're not talking about that. This is a completely unique and brand new way for you to attract and engage these and build your own team of wealth advisors where you're serving each other to all become pre-eminent professionals in your local market. So once again, the link is in the show notes. But if you want to go to it, it's bit.ly forward slash wealth advisory team. So it's bit.ly forward slash wealth advisory team. Link is in the show notes. That's the link that you go to register. It'll be a 30 minute zoom conversation. You have to learn more. Get your questions answered and see if this is something for you and beat AI in big tech to the punch with these life events that are firing these trigger leads that are allowing these big box companies to get to that client before you do. Well, look at you can get to that client by buying trigger leads and being a coal call or you can get to that client with life events by partnering with other people, other professionals and forming your own wealth advisory team and getting a warm introduction to people during those life events. So you've got the link. You know what it is. It's going to be, as I said, Thursday, June 22nd, 10 am Pacific. Link is in the show notes. Once again, it is bit.ly forward slash wealth advisory team. Without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Justin Stoddert. Justin, welcome to the show. What's up, Jeff? Good to be here, my friend. Good to be here as well. And I'm very excited to talk about this topic. We're talking about here today, which I know many of my listeners in the audience are going to respond very favorably to because it's what I've been talking about for years, which is building a pace of referrals and relationships and leading with value. But before we get into that, who is Justin Stoddert? What do you about? What do you do? I love a man. Well, first and foremost, I'm a family man. I was reminded of that this past weekend, one of his mother's day, and my six kiddos, and I got to treat my wife like the queen. She deserves to be treated. We should be doing it all year, but we're reminded this year to do it a little more, a little more intentionally. So yeah, family man at heart. And also am the author of a book called The Upstream Model, which I know we're going to talk a little bit about today. I'm also the host of a podcast called Think Bigger Real Estate, and it's been a passion mind for the past five years. And also in the CEO of a company called Pro Insight, which I know we're going to be talking about as well. Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, we're going to talk about a lot of this. And my challenge today, quite honestly, is how do I pack all this in in the limited time that we have? Because there's just so many nuggets and lessons in here. So I want to, let's start with this. You mentioned your book, The Upstream Model. We'll put a link in the show notes to the book for folks who want to get it. I have it right here in my hands. And it's all, if you're watching the video, you can see it's here tabbed. If you're not watching these lessons in here are totally appropriate for where you're at right now in your business, I'm sure. Okay. So, but it's this concept. And you have, by the way, a pretty in-depth personal understanding of the real estate business. And by that, I mean, specifically the context of the dynamic of relationship between mortgage, realtor, including title, and that whole affiliate kind of like, smooth chain, if you will. So, and you feel free to share some comments about that. But you've got this book, The Upstream Model, Hidden Secrets to Building a Massive Referral Business, while crushing big tech competitors. What's the premise of this whole upstream model idea? Yeah, it really stems back to an experience I had in my mid-20s. I was working for a high-end home builder. And I realized it was time for me to step out on my own. And I just assumed it would be as easy to go get new clients as he had made it appear. Now, maybe the, you know, the agents and loan officers that are that are listening to this can relate to that where it's like, oh, yeah, I saw what it took to like do loans. I'm like, I got this. I'm figuring out I'm to step out on my own. And all of a sudden, it's like, oh, crap. There's a whole other business here. It's not just servicing the client loan. It's actually, I should have to go get the business. I actually have to attract clients into my funnel on a regular basis. And we maybe at times discounted the amount of effort that it took to do that. Well, that was me as a high-end home builder. I knew that I had a better client experience than my competitors, even a better finished product than most all of them as well. But the challenge was how do I convince millionaires to impart two million dollars to me to have them have me build them their dream home? Right? And I realized like, okay, this is going to be, this is going to be a bit of a challenge that I had underestimated. And I was having some success, but I wanted more. And I realized that I could market to the general populace of those of that client avatar and have some success. But ultimately, a much better approach would be to go upstream. So if you can imagine a stream and everybody has their fishing poles in the water at the same spot, it's highly competitive. People are competing on, you know, which bait do you have and how fast, like how good of a, is your skill at that level? And that's the common industries, the service-based industries in which we're talking about right now. Lending, right? It's how fast can do it. What's your rate? Right? With real estate agents, how fast can you get here to open up a door? You know, how low will you go? And it's a very commoditized kind of very bloody ocean. And what I realized is I didn't want to compete like that. Like I knew I could, but it was going to be for tight margins. It was going to be on call all the time. It's like, I just don't want to compete like that. And so I figured that if I could get upstream and get to the client before anybody else knew that they were a potential client, I would have a better chance at winning that client, taking them out of the stream before my competition knew that they were there. And so I realized the best way to do that would be to identify other professionals whose current clients would be my future clients. So as a home builder, that was an architectural designer. All of their current clients had the potential to be my future clients. And so rather than marketing to the masses, playing the commodity game that I could add big value to that one entity, that one professional, their business, and they could start to introduce me to their clients before their clients start actually shopping for other builders. So that worked very well for me as a home builder. And then I began to teach it to real estate agents, and then I began to teach it to lenders. And I realized that the principles held true amongst all service-based businesses, is that you can compete on price and timing and over time on relationship and quality, but in over time, it takes time to establish that relationship or you can just get upstream and go create valuable partnerships with other professionals again whose current clients are your future clients. Add big value to that one person, and they'll open up the door to lots of ideal avatar clients. Okay, that's good. Some questions, of course, come out of that. How do I get there? How do I get upstream? How do I get engagement with those people? Yeah, great questions. There has to be a fundamental shift, I think, to start with, is that rather than thinking as a B to C entity, which is I'm going to market to the consumers. And we've been trained to think about that more and more, I think, with the advent of the internet. It's like, I can get consumers dropped into my inbox all day long, and then we're chasing them. And or even with our sphere, even if you're more referral-based, it's like we have this big database of 300 people, and I'm not saying that's bad, right? That's the foundation of any good businesses to have a good database people who you're loving on, but you realize that that big database can only produce a small number, call it 10% in referrals or deals each year. So it's like, well, if I want more, I guess I have to do, I have to add 10 times the amount of people that I'm loving on to get the amount that I actually want. And so you realize that that's there's a challenge in that, and oftentimes in that challenge, people adopt this mentality of it's just a numbers game. It's just a number game. I'm just going to go through the numbers, but the problem is when we're sorting through the numbers, we're actually giving up margin, and we're giving up lifestyle. Is it either we're doing it, or we're hiring someone else to do it to sort through the numbers, and that process is where we actually lose the main reason why we get into this business, which is to produce a higher dollar per hour, be able to take more home and work on our own terms. All of a sudden, because of the model that we've subscribed to, we're losing that opportunity. And so the shift is to go away from being a B2C marketer and become a B2B marketer. In other words, instead of going to the consumer, go to a business owner who already has all the clients. They've already done the decade worth of effort and work to get a client to trust them. And if you choose the right partner, there'll be somebody who is the right avatar for you, like you guys share a common client, you share a common customer. And if you choose that partner right, and you lead with real contribution, right, that's something that's almost cliched these days, a lead of contribution, but like, which often means that people is like, here's a stack of my cards, here's brochures, I'm never too busy for your referrals. That's not leading with contribution. You know it, and they know it, right? I'm not saying it's bad, but it's just not effective. It's not effective in a B2B setting. It might be with your clients and friends and family, but that model was not designed to be in a B2B setting. So if you're going to go B2B, you've got to choose a new model that's actually a B2B model, which the upstream model is that. It's designed to say rather than stepping in as a lender, right, to a partner's, to a potential upstream partner's business, you're stepping in as almost a business consultant. You're there to solve problems that they have. And by the way, getting referrals from them is not a problem that they have. Your job is to really identify what is a bottleneck in their business. And you find out the bottleneck by first asking, where is it that you're headed? Like tell me what you're excited about. Tell me what are you building right now? Like what's a big goal? Great. Tell me what's your plan to get there, right? Like how are you new to it? And the last thing is like tell me a bottleneck that would keep you from doing that. Well, you identify that and value to that. Now the sudden you're seeing different, right? You receive differently. And that's what a B2B model looks like is you step into actually add value to their business before you start asking for their business. Yeah. So we're going to come back to this concept of how do we actually, well, we're going to talk about the family office concept during this conversation, of course. But speaking of how do you become a good partner with somebody, I love this in the book. Let's walk through these concepts of briefly, if you don't mind, stop being a solicitor and a vendor. And you have this kind of progression, you know, from the bottom of the pyramid, if you will, to the top, right? From solicitor vendor peer mentor and leader, can you briefly walk us through the differences at each of those stages? Yeah. I think we all know what it feels like to be a solicitor, right? And it probably we even know even more certainly what it feels like to be solicited that we realize that somebody's there to get something from us, even if it's just our time. And we don't really see an equal value exchange. And so our attempt is how do I without without being rude? How do I dismiss this person so I can get back to what's important to me? That's that's that's how solicitors are treated. And oftentimes, we don't we again, we go back to this concept. Well, it's just the numbers 98 people are going to say, no, I'm going to the next. And it's like, yeah, but the wake of of bad reputation and and and inconvenience you provided for 98 people may not be the reputation you want to have. Maybe there's a better way and the fact that you spit 98 conversations that were productive like I get it works. There's no doubt the numbers work. But is there a better way, right? We have to ask ourselves, is there a better way to not have to like blow through 98 people to find the two? And so the first concept is is that is we have to like come to grips with the fact that maybe there's a better way to go about this. Now, you have to ask your question again, because I got on a on a tangent. Absolutely. No, I get it. It's no problem because there's so like I said, there's so much in here. So these are the foundationable principles of becoming a good partner. Like, you know, the question is how referable are you or you talked about solving problems. So you've got this this graph in your books, solicitor vendor peer mentor leader. And I think maybe I'll help solidify it this way with the question. How would for those listening, how would you consider yourself a solicitor, a vendor here? Right? You want to unpack that a little bit? Yeah, yeah. So, so I talked about kind of that bottom spectrum, right? Which is solicitor. The next one up is to be a vendor. Typically, a vendor isn't seen with a like you don't see signs on people's house that say like no vendors allowed. They see no solicitation. So we know that like a vendor is a step up from a solicitor, but a vendor is simply somebody who is known to do a certain job. And if we're going to really move to this B2B model and really unpack the value of having somebody else open doors all day long to our ideal avatar, ideal client, we can't just be a vendor because a vendor can be replaced. It's just somebody who's known for doing the job that they're supposed to do inside their silo. And I think that nothing erupted with the key point that you mentioned here is not seen as an equal. Yeah, yeah, you still look down upon, right? Not in a in a moral way or like a not an ethical way, but it's just like a place I get this this widget alone, whatever, right? Yeah, I keep her beyond that, but there's another level. Yeah, the next level up from that is peer, right? Where they see you as an equal. Now, I want all the lenders listening to this. Sometimes you'll feel when you approach a real estate agent, right? That you're a vendor, right? They're not being mean to you. They're not treating you like a solicitor. They're trying to dismiss you, but they just see you as one of many, right? When you can step up to the level of being a peer, they no longer see you as just a vendor. They see you as a fellow business owner who they can learn from that you're an equal, that you realize that there's value to be exchanged both ways, not that just you're good at what you do. And so therefore you should give them something, right? Kind of this like beggar like, oh, great. Hey, I'm, you know, I'm the best of my class. They see you as an equal. And when that happens, something, something shifts in their brain to where they realize that, hey, I think I need you as much as you need me. So they treat you differently. They give you more time. They give you more space. They give you, they open up more to what is really plaguing them. As I was describing before, the process of really identifying a bottleneck in people's world, which is the key, by the way, to starting to, to take the next step. But they aren't going to do that if they don't see you as an equal. They're going to talk about what you do for a living period. What you want to do is elevate the conversation to the next level, which is what's really happening in their world. Mentoring leader. Right. That's the final step, right? At this one, they realize that they need you more than you need them. And this is not an ego thing. So please don't take it that way. It's just the fact that like, they start to realize that, okay, I'm right here and I want to be up here in my business. And I feel like I can get there faster with you involved, right? And they feel this, this sense of wanting to, to reciprocate and add value to you so that the value that you bring to the marketplace can, can infiltrate their business. And it's this phrase sometimes helps people to understand this, which is, is if you want somebody's business, become a part of their business, right? When you realize, when they realize, and you help them to realize that they can get to another level faster, all of a sudden, they're thinking of ways that they can, they can reciprocate, including giving you their business, right? They're going to start sending you business so that you can continue to contribute to them in ways that get them to where they want to go faster. I love that. Thank you for walking us through that. I think one of the areas that people get stuck sometimes is solving that equation. Or, you know, they're, they're so caught up in the framework of I am a loan officer realtor whatever fill in the blank, right? That they don't think outside of that frame of like solving problems. And you have this question. I love I highlighted this. It's what problem can I solve for this agent, right? Or loan officer that they have not already solved? Yeah. I wrote like that's a, that's a stopper right there like pause for a minute. Because the issue I'm addressing for most of the loan officers, I know that I interface with over the across the country is we're always coming in hot and heavy with our bag of loan related, right? Solutions. Yeah. And you make a great point is that when you do that, right? You're just adding to the problem they already have, which is too much noise vendor not solving any, I don't have a problem of getting loans done. Yeah. I thought that was beautiful, man. Thanks. I love hearing you say, I think you say it better than I do. And that's, that's all of a sudden it gets easy for people to want to be in business with you when you start to solve their problems, right? I mean, I think about it like this because I go kind of like, you know, I get very specific with these things because my audience is always in my head and I'm thinking, how about you, if you're a loan officer listening to this and you're approaching a realtor and you had that coffee or meeting or whatever and you're like, hey, first of all, I just want to make it clear just in that before we get into like knowing each other whatever, I'm not here to try and right tell you I'm going to solve all your problems related to mortgages because you already have a loan officer, right? That you work with. Yeah, I do. Great. I'm not trying. You know what I mean? You go down that hole. I'm not here to try and solve a problem that doesn't need solving. Yeah. So what do we do then? How do we, right? Move from vendor to peer. What are the questions, conversations? How do we uncover that? Yeah. Well, I think it's to give them the assurance just like you described. Like, I'm not here to solve problems that they don't need if it ain't broke. Yeah. Like that would that would not be good for you nor would it be a good use of my time. I do want you to know however though that I am confident that the value of the value you're getting from whoever your existing providers are. I'm confident that we can at least match if not beat that. But I'm not here to talk about me today. I'm really not. But I do want you to get like to give you the insurance. It's the assurance that this is a good use of time because the level of experience you're used to like I'm confident we can do that. But what I am here to talk about today is you and your business and where you're headed with it. Now keep in mind the people like to talk about themselves. I have to talk about the future of where they're headed. If they're not they might not be a good candidate for you right because they haven't really really have a vision where they're going to kind of floundering right. So actually and part of this whole process is you're not going in just saying if anybody has a pulse or a deal to give I'm going to give it. You need to take on the posture the fact that I'm actually interviewing that I have limited resources to give and I'm going to give them to those that are the best investment like the that provide the best ROI. So part of this isn't just it's not posturing even though I said posture it's not posturing you're not you're not there to just get business for anybody. You're really evaluating and interviewing them to see do they have a goal? Do they have a plan? Do they have challenges that I can solve because if if none of those add up if they don't have a vision of a goal then that can have any more business to give. If they don't actually have a plan well maybe you could help them with that but you at least want to know that thought a little bit about that or otherwise the goal is a little delusional and then lastly you want to know what problems they have because if you can't solve problems this is going to be shortly of anyway like if the problems that they have are completely things that you don't want to solve then let's not waste our time right. So part of this is you're really interviewing to see if this is the right candidate you know into whom and not from again not from an ego standpoint but just to save everybody the time and the hassle standpoint but that that is the conversation you have those three points are critical for you stepping out of the role of being a lender for just a minute leave your lender hat in the car and you're a business consultant now your job is to find out where are they headed. Number two what's the plan to get there and number three what bottlenecks do you foresee could keep you from getting there. Now again not everybody's going to have roll off the tip of their tongue but if they say you know I need some clarity on where I'm headed that doesn't mean that it's it's like this person's a loser they're not going anywhere that I have a goal but you should at least make mental note of like can I help them develop that like are you open to gaining some clarity around what you actually want to build there's very talented people out there that are now ready to build something else so again it should not be a showstopper or like game over if they don't have it but you should make mental note if they don't have a goal that's something I can help them with right we're going to talk about that okay the the second question again is tell me your plan if you had this like list out what's the fastest and best most assured way for you to get to where you want to go what does that look like so if you're a lender if you're in a real estate agent is it is your business primarily by referral do you have other lead sources like you say you want to get to a hundred deals a year how many do you have right now and and what's the gap and what's your plan to close that gap what does it look like like be a business consultant right your job is to really identify where you can fit into that picture and again that's the whole premise here as I'm trying to find out how I can become a part of their business so that given me their business becomes such a natural extension of them wanting to contribute back yeah I think might take away from this is if we're talking about mortgage originators listening to this and in in in in converse conversations with agents or other referral partners is they need to get better at discovery right asking those questions and and just as you said a moment ago kind of just putting putting your sales bag down like you know stop with the pitch man that's so refreshing when people they're waiting for the pitch and when it doesn't come that's one way by the way to start moving upstream from vendor because you're not pitching to peer like you can see that the shift and the dynamic in the conversation people's shoulders relax they breathe a little bit easier they're like oh you know they're not gonna tell me all about their great products and services and how they close on they're actually actually asking me questions yeah that's pretty engaging and you're right it does something to the the whole goal of of this this meeting should be twofold number one is to cause them to see you as as a minimum up here if not a mentor leader right that's one is to trigger somebody that's like this person's different I knew when I was working as an executive for a title company then I was I was calling to have conversations with with with higher agents I knew I was doing something right when they said to me you know what I've never had a conversation like this with someone in title and escrow yeah right like that was really like okay I'm I'm doing it right right but when they're like well what makes you different than our existing company it's like I screwed up here because they can't see it they can't feel it right I'm just another guy in here trying to pedal title and escrow right and they already have a title and escrow person this is always the time so you know you don't write if they're like wait a minute this boy this is a different conversation I'm used to that's what you want to have to have to have trigger either mine and I read that in your book and I can't tell you how much that hit me because you may not be aware of it but but I spent a fair amount of time over the last two years working with a title company here in my backyard and one of the things some of the title reps kept peppering me for because I was the marketing technology director um they wanted the app of the week like what's the latest app what's the cool thing what's the bright because they always felt they had to walk in there with something new and different and the challenge for me was to get them to stop with that and just say wait them it's not about this app this thing it's what did they really need yeah and and shifting it was so hard for some people to just step out of the lane they been in for so long because they think that's their value if I'm the person bringing them the thing I'm winning but I love how you said you again I'll just say it in the book is it says right here does that look like loading another app on their phone that is similar to other apps from other companies right um that's not solving the problem that's not that's adding to I don't need another app I don't need another bright shiny object what we really need is solutions to our problems which is the premise of what we're going to now probably shift into and talking about this conversation is moving up that ladder from vendor to peer to mentor and leader that's how you do that I love the fact that you said business owner and that is a mind shift mind set shift also is going from salesperson loan officer whatever to business owner when you have that mindset of a business owner I know you know this the questions you ask yourself become different don't they yeah totally yeah you're evaluating every conversation you're in differently right this isn't just uh I mean go back to that mentality that you described right of maybe a common title person which is I need a bright and shiny object well the next person that comes in behind you's going to have a brighter and shinier object so you've just completely commoditized yourself right you are at six minute abs five minute abs for you know that old joke yeah and that's that's just not a place you want to compete in right because it's just what have you done for me this week what I've been bringing this week yeah and and that's how again you'll attract new agents all day long or even agents who are not ever really going to produce at a high level because they're so focused on a shiny object you and I both know that the key to this business is not a bright and shiny object it's finding a model and buying into it and being super consistent at doing it over a long period of time like those the agents that are going to win and so if you're if your methodology is attractive to people that love bright shiny objects you're always going to be spending your wheels because those people are going to be spinning out of the business right that's why 80% of the agents are out in two years is because they can't focus they can't choose a model and stick with it and focus and and build something those that do although sometimes far inferior when it comes to talent and looks and like whatever metric you could put on it they're just better because they they they double down and they focus and they get good at that one thing so whereas the mentality of a business owner right is again how do we create systems and processes and people who can consistently put in create a consistent input so that we can get a consistent output and then and you measure that you tweak it and you improve upon it and the way that you approach these business owners because that's what they are if you approach them as a as a up street peddler of shiny objects you're not going to track the business owners you got to come in with a business owner approach in order to attract business owners in order for it to be the attractive to business owners yeah and I guess the last point on that regarding business owners and this is another issue for lawn officers listening up right now is that too many times I've heard lawn officers believe that these quote unquote producing agents don't you know they're struggling with what problems do they have like they're a producing agent they're already quote successful right and a business owner always has problems to solve no matter of what is the problem right well and that's when we're thinking about it came from a lawn officers perspective is sure you can come in with your new loan products and your new stuff but if you stop talking and start asking good questions right that I believe should be in at least kind of those three major categories of where you headed what's your plan and what bottlenecks to you foresee if you can if you can come out because again I don't know if I finish my thought is that there's there's two major reasons for this meeting number one is to be triggered to be able to see to have them see you as more than a vendor you know for them to see you as a peer at minimum the last thing is to actually gather intelligence that allows you to serve them right like actually to to know what their problem is because again if you are simply prescribing without diagnosing right you're a total like if you were a doctor you'd be you lose your license over that right and maybe loan officer should lose their license as well if they come in and prescribe without diagnosing like be the doctor that doesn't come out into the waiting room and start just passing out medication everybody hey you'd be done so quick right whereas and that's what that's what we do is we come out we say I got I got the best loan product loan product loan product loan product does it post a saying tell me where where you at like where you headed what's your plan and and what bottlenecks do you see you know what now that you say that I think I have some things that might be beneficial to you now at least your your prescription has some context for them and they realize how this helps them yeah people have to take you seriously and on that note one thing that I found that you maybe you found this in the in the in the book that I shared is that some of the people feel intimidated to ask those questions because they don't feel like they're qualified to be able to answer them all right like well I don't really want to ask like like I don't like who might be a business consultant I'm just a loan officer and it's it's you don't have to know all the things yourself and you don't definitely don't have to know them on the spot but you just get curious ask good questions and and and maybe ask at minimum are you are you open if I if I if I have somebody that I could introduce you to or an idea that might help this is it okay if I circle back and you've apparently need to ask permission for that people if they've told you their problem they're they're kind of saying like I'm open to having some help me to fix them right and and so I always tell people that there's there's four buckets from which you can pull from that ought to give you the confidence to ask that question to anybody and everybody like I would feel comfortable sitting in front of Richard Branson or any tycoon Elon Musk like let's say that right kind of the business tycoon of our era like Elon Musk and I sit down with him and I I would ask him these questions like tell me what's your vision for Twitter right what what what does that look like um what's your plan to do that okay business plan what bottlenecks to you foresee okay now Elon's going to be saying some things that I'm going to have no idea how to solve I've never run a technology company like Twitter I don't know right but here's what I do know is that there's four buckets from which I can pull from number one is who do I know that might be able to help Elon solve that problem who I currently know right now number two is what do I know that might help Elon solve that problem okay that's that's the second bucket those ones are are finite right because it's who I currently know and what I currently know the other two are infinite which is the third bucket is who could I know that might be able to help Elon solve that problem right and the fourth bucket is what could I learn what could I know that might help Elon solve that problem right so now it's it's those buckets using even the power of the internet right or conversations with other bright people we can solve any problem in the world right or at least direct people at least offer some sort of guidance and help that's beneficial and that's how you move from being even just appear to being a mentor and leader they recognize that you just identified their biggest problem and now you're bringing back connections and ideas that help solve that even if they don't aren't the perfect fit just the fact that you played at that level you're going to be seen differently and they're going to want to take another meeting and they're going to want to be in business with you because they realize again that where they're at and where they want to be at there's a path there and you just paved a highway they realize I got to have this Jeff guy in my world because I know I'm going to get there faster if he's in it right yeah and that has a that has value above and beyond what you already deliver as a professional for your service offering which is expected that you deliver anyways all right that's that's an awesome conversation so and that's probably a good pivot for us to talk about the other reason why I wanted to bring you on the podcast and bring this to the attention of my listeners is I was introduced to you through an acquaintance that I've known mutual acquaintance business the business acquaintance for for over two years now Don Jochem and it's this this concept of the family office and and I want to unpack if you could the family office and what you guys are doing specific to the mortgage and real estate world with the family office could you do that yeah you bet so I've had my own coaching company for a number of years now and and I'll be honest I was even at times getting frustrated with it because I would teach these principles to a loan officer teach these principles to a to a real estate agent and it's almost like if I were to take a basketball team and I take one person on that team and I train them up how to be really good right but nobody else goes to practice nobody else learns anything and I put them on the court I feel I can't figure out why they aren't winning it's because I was training one person right and when I met Don Don opened up a vision to me of what what he was building and asked and invited me to be a part of it and it's this is that if you can train everybody in that circle all the key players that surround a real estate transaction how to think and operate this way the referrals will flow like the salmon of Capastrano I just coated them my wife coated that over the weekend I just smiled at them like I love you um anyway so the the the point behind it is is if you just teach one person what it becomes their job it becomes a loan officer job to go teach the real estate agent how to think this way and the financial advisor how to think this way and the CPA how to think this way and so they're you're met with some resistance because what they're used to seeing from a loan officer is common let's be honest what's common is common right and so they don't treat you differently right away over time can you can you help help shift them and give them some ahas no doubt undoubtedly and that's what we were seeing that's what I'm seeing with my coaching clients is that you have these conversations enough but there's also a burden on them to go teach these other players how to think this way and so what we have identified is that they're there are life events in which there are certain professionals who are almost always needed during those life events those life events could be birth death marriage divorce uh you know retirement relocation uh business sale whatever right these these life events happen and the household the client themselves would best be would be best served if they had a collaboration from multiple of those professionals right let's take an asset sale business sale for example commercial real estate agent you bet a lender yeah you bet right an attorney a CPA um potentially their private bank like there's there's people around there that if they were to not only know that that life event were happening but be able to work collaboratively collaboratively with all the people who could also help during that time insurance is another one that things would go so much smoother for the household so at the very outset what we're doing is we are democratizing an idea that was once reserved only for the uber wealthy i'll give an example if you're a billionaire right let's say you're Elon Musk since we're using his name right that whether you love Elon or hate Elon that's not the point of this okay the point is he has a lot of money right wealthy spend in the world he has what's called a family office where he has his own financial advisory team his own real estate team his own insurance team his own property management team his own like he has his own team well because he can because there's enough wealth there to deal with it and that's why the wealthy continue to get more and more wealthy because they have a team around them that that works collaboratively together and so what we're doing is we're taking that concept of a family office and we're democratizing it bringing it down for the common consumer for the average person we're allowing them to have access to a family office so we are reconstructing that in the form of identifying professionals in each county of the country exclusive in their area their territory to build out a family office so for example in each family office there will be a residential real estate agent there may be a commercial real estate agent it's up to the family office to decide what they want there'll be somebody who's expert insurance a financial advisor a CPA potentially a business banker right potentially like there will be that core group of attorneys see tax professionals real estate professionals who come together to do two things number one to work together to find the ideal clients that they can serve collaboratively now when I say collaboratively I don't mean like you're not going to bring all seven professionals to the table at once necessarily you may right but there will be certain times where you'll bring two or three people together to serve a client household during a life event so the first thing that a family office does is it well the first thing is as is it provides a superior experience for the household that they've never experienced before because it's not just one person's value proposition of I'm a lender and I do this different a better it's a combined value propositions of everybody it's a combined value propositions of this family office so you are far and away unique and different because you have access to bring people together who work collaboratively together like an all-star basketball team who who has worked together for a long time right so that's the concept now how is this good for the for the professional getting back to my thought what my comment is that the first thing that they do is they they share a common avatar and because they share a common avatar it gets really easy for them to bring that person to the table and refer it to the other parties right so you're you're getting help finding the ideal clients to serve that's the first thing the second thing is that you are serving them collaboratively right you're you're actually working together to to serve that household so when you do that you the family office becomes a really unique situation to be a part of because you're not having to just work by referral through your own database nor are you having to supplement that those referrals with with prospecting nor with internet leads you can get enough from the family office enough warm referrals that it will sustain a very robust business and you can cut out the time that you would normally spend finding clients and you can reallocate that to serving clients and earning a higher dollar per hour because everybody again shares a common client so that's the concept of the family office that again we're bringing to not just to the households but we're also bringing that concept to professionals helping them to to scale a referral business in it in an entirely new way yeah I love it I'm involved and on board because I think as I told you in a previous conversation this is what I've been teaching for years is you know you kind of build your I was calling this you know to borrow a phrase from my buddy Wally Ellibary this is kind of like the wealth team that you know you would build this this this referral network now I there are some key differences here though because sometimes and I know you've you've addressed these questions in the past when they think about okay so you're telling me I'm gonna assemble like a financial advisor right maybe a CPA a lender a realtor etc plus you're gonna have other affiliates in there um what's the difference of doing this versus other versions of this that have been done in the past yeah I would say the common thing that people say is is this like a litip or a B&I and I and I invite them to to this and that there's no um those you that have been a part of one of those productive groups know that they can be very good um I would say though that that a distinct difference is that the people who are invited into the family office are those who serve during unique life events they're asset-based professionals and those who can who can queue us up that a life event is coming right um it's not gonna be for chiropractors necessarily it's not gonna be for a florist right just because there's an opening in your chapter and there's nobody else there does not mean that they're the right fit for for for for your group and you needing a back adjustment isn't necessarily a life of that I feel like at the moment but yeah I don't know that your plans would argue or or or would attest that that would fit inside of a family office setting the other big thing thing that we do is that oftentimes in those settings all the value is exchanged behind closed doors so it's still really invites a siloed type of atmosphere so for example if I go to one of those meetings 90 minutes on a Friday morning let's say and I've been a part of them before and it was it was a decent experience right I did recognize that there was an added burden that it wasn't just shown up for 90 minutes but I had to actually needed to actually do it to be a good standing member to do multiple one-on-ones a week right that oftentimes took an hour at least to where I'm getting no other people right and and I get that and that's what makes those those work but when you're meeting with somebody who you know is not gonna be a valuable resource for you and vice versa it's it's it's it's it's not always that fun of time you kind of do it out of obligation but back to my point of you you get behind closed doors to teach each other how to refer you and then everybody goes back to their own silos right I step back into my world let's say as a real estate agent and I'm hoping that the or the financial or I'm hoping that I said something good enough that the financial advisor will think of me and remember me and bring me up to his clients or clients right I'm hoping that I said something remarkable enough when I did my presentation that the CPA says you know what I'm gonna bring you up to my clients and we see it differently rather than getting behind closed doors to train each other we actually serve the client collaboratively so we bring the client to the center of where values be in exchange to the events that we do are centered around serving a client would collaboratively come together to serve those clients towards that there's not this you know a couple hours a week invested to do this you're simply spending a couple hours a week to actually serve a client and actually make money on a client right and you're only bringing in people who are who are uniquely identified as serving your your avatar in common as opposed to anybody who who wants to get in because there's opening you know an opening what what are example of these types of events that come together to serve the client yeah so a couple of them one is called an expert panel so when you have this these kinds of professionals around you right you could easily say real estate agent lender and financial advisor or let's say real estate agent 1031 exchange and a tax professional let's come together each one of us are going to invite our client base to a private zoom meeting where we're going to be giving a panel discussion on how to exchange out of properties in the coming year based on the new tax law that was just passed right and so rather than again just hoping that I've trained you well enough to where you go talk about it I'm going to be talking about it in front of your clients because you invited them to this expert panel event so it's actually a combined event there's also we're also going to be bringing in ideal avatars that meet that we've got partnerships with big data companies that will allow us to identify other people in the community that would be invited to that expert panel event so it's not just the the respective databases of those involved but other community members that would have interest in this particular thing another one is is actually a family office consultation where we because we have a unique avatar we know who would be a good fit to actually bring them into a zoom meeting and have the insurance agent have the lender have the real estate agent and the tax professional there to consult together so that that group works cohesively together to serve that household's needs again we're not behind closed doors hoping that we then when we return to our silos we remember each other we're breaking down the silos and we're working together on the same household yeah I mean that makes sense for those that are looking to not have to chase but to build a team of like-minded professionals that that are all serving the same need which is a person right who has quote unquote a life event you mentioned those earlier in our conversation birth diploma married promoted transferred divorce right those are examples and I love the fact that you did highlight as compared to other kind of quote unquote networking and I wouldn't even describe this as networking this is a whole different thing meaning remember the family the family office concept which is exclusively designed for before high net worth individuals I look at this is this you know grouping of people is designed for people of the right of the same and similar mindset in that they want to serve at a higher level and they all have or wreck or or I was gonna say all have the same problem that might be articulated differently but the point is they recognize the value of building partnerships so they too also don't have to continue to chase business you know and all with that does that make sense yeah 100 percent well said yeah the chase goes away and people like well how am I gonna have time to do all this what's because you you kind of back to my comment if you can identify those professionals whose current clients are your future clients like the hunt goes away the search goes away you simply serve each other's clients right and you're introduced to call it a dozen other databases of people who are your ideal avatar and by the way it's not like you're just shown up in their news feed there is a warm introduction from their advisor who they've trusted for the past 10 years that's a way different experience than being introduced via Zillow right or being introduced via you know some other online lead campaign or or you introducing yourself by calling their phone right like their advisor is introducing you yeah so how you gonna have time to do this well because you're gonna cut out all the chase all the all the unnecessary fat that it actually isn't serving clients you'll be simply introduced to your ideal clients yeah which is like the example you gave yeah I didn't want to meet with the Mary K person per se right just to check my box yeah you've got to use your time very wisely so to sum this all up and and we do have if anybody's listening and wants to learn more about this and like I said I'm definitely involved and I'm looking for other like-minded professionals if you're hearing this right now across the country and you're interested to learn more about this and you've got some questions there's additional information that you definitely need to know but you can go to growmyfamilyoffice.com and I'm gonna be scheduling probably a informational you know meeting webinar zoom to just walk through the next stages of learning more to see if this is the right fit for both of us because this isn't for everybody we're not looking for everybody nor should you be so once again it's growmyfamilyoffice.com to summarize this is what we're doing is connecting professionals through the creation of a local family office community right you're gonna have your own areas gonna be exclusive to you so you can identify and partner these service-based professionals as you've heard mentioned to collaborate and find the you know mutual clients during those important life events did I summarize that well I was super well said yeah super well said all right anything else you want to tell us about this before we wrap up because you know we're almost out of time yeah I think the only thing I would add in is just there's opportunities to help us build this right there's as Jeff described there's ways for you to to come in as a family office leader right where you're actually building out your own family office and again as soon as you hear this don't don't wait on this because it is exclusive by territory so I don't I'm not this is like false scarcity this is real scarcity but there really is there really are limitations so if this resonates with you speak up get kind of a Jeff right away yeah if you're sending yourself like I would love to train on this I would love to be actually a trainer on this we have very lucrative very lucrative positions inside a pro insight they will allow you to train on this part time to begin with potentially full time more that they're extremely lucrative and then also for those that say I could I could get behind this and and tell people about this all day long there's a role called a pro insight builder which is designed to to have you helping us get the word out on this again very lucrative multiple six-figure income opportunities in both of these to help us get the word out and spread this quickly across the country because it's needed now more than ever let's be honest like technologies moving faster than ever and if and if you want to not become out of ties by it or the common professional now's the time to move yeah and the cool thing about this is by the way that we're not saying this is a replacement for you being a mortgage professional right this is in addition to and giving you access to these additional sources of business so that very clear and let's close out on this because I love this from the book because part of your book is talks about disruption and you know tech disruptors and all that and should I be afraid but this one quote from Terry Sprague I think sums it up as she says while others are doubling down on artificial intelligence I'm doubling down on human intelligence yeah I love that it's good stuff that's how you win that's with the big boys and girls the tech disruptors can't do can they take market share yes absolutely they're they're going to do it but you've got to protect your market share and I think the best way to do that is through relationships connections partnerships and things like that yeah so yeah man thank you so much once again you want to learn more go to grow my family office dot com we'll have more information there you can learn more take the next steps just and appreciate your time very very much oh and by the way for those who want to get the book where do they get the book we're going to put a link in the show notes yeah so so good audible Amazon are easy ways for everybody to have it delivered if you want to also join my email list you go to think bigger re.com forward slash book that's probably another way to get it to you so and that it'll be less expensive than on Amazon so and listen to your podcast as well you can find that on the same website think bigger re.com podcast you're gonna learn a lot by going there as well so hey appreciate make a time band I know you're super busy a pleasure man such a pleasure all right so listeners you know what to do hey take the next step so everything is right for you if you like this episode leave us a review and share it with somebody else we'll see you on the next one bye for now hey guys what's up real quick you've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before and I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans you need to fill your pipeline with purchase business let's just face it agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you well good news our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling done for you agent classes expert training videos a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market attract and convert agents into referral partners plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class getting agents butts and seeds partnering with affiliates real easy but that's not all you'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top elbows authors speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market and as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from 8 to 50 transactions in the last 12 months and we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents so what are you waiting for you can check out more at mortgage marketing dot pro see more of the success stories there and if you feel compelled to do so book a call we'll have a chat we'll see if it's a fit don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now head over to mortgage marketing dot pro