Closing 300 Loans in Post COVID-19 World

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey there, listener. What's up, Jeff? As I'm for your host, your chief truth teller for this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. I'm glad you tuned in. I think you're going to be glad you tuned in as well because this is a very special episode and we are talking about how to stop chasing agents, get agents coming to you and one loan officer's story about how she has adapted and overcome since COVID-19. You're going to be excited to hear this one. We get started in just a minute. All right, all right, all right, welcome back everybody. So glad you've tuned in. We're doing something a little bit different today, normally what you hear if you're listening to this on the podcast platforms, whether that's Apple, Spotify, Google Play, all the other ones. You know, you're listening to the audio only and what we've been doing for the last couple of months is taking my weekly Facebook live show and actually turning that into a podcast. So I'd love to know if you like that format, you can email me anytime podcast at mortgage marketingradio.com, love to know your feedback in us doing the live show and you know, turning those interviews into the podcast. However, today we are doing something a little bit different than I'm going to tell you about in just a moment, but before I do, have you heard two quick announcements I want to share with you. Number one, if you don't know by now, my brand new book is out. Yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. I love it when there's a studio audience here, my new book Disruptor Die, How to Survive and Thrive the Digital Real Estate Shift. This labor of love, this baby I gave birth to, it was a year gestation period of research and study and interviews and you know, trying to put together the truth about what's working today in real estate and mortgage marketing. Stories from loan officers that are succeeding online and off. Stories from real estate agents that are doing the same is a book intended for you as a loan officer to share gift to your real estate agents. If you're an agent listening, it's a book that's ideally suited for you as well. We walk through basically, you know, two parts to the book. Part one is, right, the five trends that are driving the digital real estate shift and then part two is, right, tactical and strategic. How do we actually become a modern mortgage and real estate professional and adapt to the digital real estate shift, which is here in a big, fast way and it's here, it's been accelerated why because of COVID-19. COVID-19 accelerated the rate of change with the digital real estate shift. It has forced us in the mortgage and real estate space to adapt and learn these new modern communication tools, online tools, et cetera. By the way, that's the number one skill I believe we all need today, always has been but even so moving forward is to be excellent communicators using today's contemporary tools. And so we talk a lot about that in the book. Anyway, you want to get the book. Here's how you get the book. You go to disruptordiebook.com, yep, you can either get it for free and I'll pay for shipping. I'm sorry, wait a minute, no, I'll send it to you for free. You pay for shipping. How's that for a deal, right? Okay, so you're going to save about 15 bucks on the book if you want to go that route or you can buy a direct from Amazon, both links are available at disruptordiebook.com. And even more exciting is there is a free companion course that goes along with the book. What is that? A companion course along with the book? That's right. You go by the book, either one of those options and you will get access to a series that goes along with each chapter videos, downloads, checklists, handouts and ebooks and stuff like that meant to help you navigate and walk through the book kind of chapter by chapter. So that is included in part and parcel with every purchase of the book. You can just go to disruptordiebook to get that, check it out, hope you like it. Okay, my special guest. So here's why this episode is different. Number one, it's not from the live show. It is from a just a candid, frank, unprepared, unrehearsed conversation that I had with this person whom I've grown to really admire and just have a heart-centered connection with her. Who am I talking about? Michelle Castle, out of Sherman, Texas with guild mortgage, Michelle is an unbelievable human being. One who just oozes love and positivity and, you know, you get around some people, you're just better because of it. Michelle is one of those people for me. But Michelle also has an incredible story. First of all, she is a super mega producer woman, multiple awards and recognition in this business for multiple years. Let me just tell you that she is doing about 300 units a year through the ReFi boom with COVID-19. When I spoke to her in the month of May 2020, I think her team was going to close 100 units that month. But her personal production is about 30 units a month consistently. And she's in a tiny little town, Sherman, Texas, greater surrounding area over there. There's only about 300 agents in town. And Michelle, prior to COVID-19, was teaching classes, live in-person classes. Well, COVID-19 comes, right? That hits the pause and everything changes it. And so she had to adapt and she has. She's evolved, right? And two years ago, actually, is when she started teaching classes because one day, she woke up and she said, you know what, I'm tired of chasing agents. I'm tired of like having to reach out and pitch and find and sift and sort and maybe even cold call. So she had an epiphany about two years ago and decided to make a shift to actually leading with an educational platform. So she started teaching educational courses, some RCE, some are not. As COVID came and hit, no longer could she do that. So she quickly adapted to teaching them over Zoom. So now she's teaching virtual classes over Zoom and she's never going to go back. Now obviously that doesn't mean she'll never do in-person events and things like that. But her leading with classes is her number one source of business. She also has a private Facebook group of real estate agents, which she's had for a roughly nine years. You want to talk about, right? Advanced thought leader getting in front of it. Okay. She has virtually every single real estate agent in her town, that small town of 300 agents in her private Facebook group. So often I hear you loan officers asking about engagement. How do we continue to get engagement? How do we stay top of mind in a post COVID-19 world where people don't want to get together perhaps as often or feel like, wow, do I really have to? Can't we do this online, right? Guys, I've been preaching Facebook groups for a while now. We're helping our members do it over in our mortgage membership. We're helping our members do exactly what Michelle does with online educational classes. So here's my second call to action to you today. If you want to learn more about building an online educational platform that attracts agents to you, that creates a wide net attraction strategy. So you can put agents in the top of the funnel and create conversations and relationships. Go check out mortgagemarketing.pro. We have temporarily opened up membership again. It's not going to be open for long. We are going to close it back down and change the model. Here's what I can tell you. It has never been more favorable than it is right now for you to look at becoming a member. The stories are endless. The success stories of loan officers succeeding. I've got hundreds of them. I don't hopefully have to convince you with a value of leading with an educational platform. So if you want to learn more, there's a short video I put up. Everything has been adjusted and pivoted for the online world now. It's post-COVID-19, helping you deliver online classes using Zoom, giving you the PowerPoint to slides and speaker notes, giving you the online feedback survey form with a calendar integration to set up calls for you with agents like virtually automatically. Hey, go check it out, mortgagemarketing.pro. Okay, so back to Michelle. Michelle also, because she's now adapted her business to teaching online classes to real estate agents, she can now go outside of her area of Sherman, Texas. So now she's expanding into Dallas in larger markets. Why? Because she's doing it virtually online. She doesn't have to drive the two hours to go to Dallas. She can attract real estate agents with an educational platform from her entire state. And oh, by the way, you want to get licensed in other states? You can do that too. This is an amazing way. It's been COVID is there's a silver lining in there. And today's conversation is one of an example of Michelle, how she's leveraging that. So she does consistent classes every Wednesday, you know, I could go on and on. I'd rather let you hear her story about how she tells the story. But here's the thing I want you to know about this. Usually when I do a podcast interview, I have a pre-call conversation where I try to pull out some talking points, right, about the focus of our conversation. Michelle and I decided to do something differently. The conversation was she had already hit record from the moment we started. And so at one point in the conversation, we just decide to make our conversation the podcast interview, okay? So it's not like perfectly polished, it's real, it's authentic, and it's us just having a conversation in me being really curious and inquisitive about how is she conducting her business? How is she attracting business? How is she managing the deal flow, the lead flow and things like that? So I am thoroughly thrilled to be able to bring you this interview with the one, the only Michelle Castle without further ado. Let's get into this week's show. But she said a couple of things about you, one that you are big on education and lead with an educational platform. And if I recall, you've done some pivoting lately with COVID in that now you're doing a lot of online virtual classes and stuff for agents. Correct. And so that's what number one grabbed my attention because that's like in my willhouse, my passion as well as leaving with education. So I'd like to learn more about that. The whole point of this call is to maybe uncover a couple of talking points for the podcast. Right. So I did, you know, it's funny, COVID happened March 13th on an airplane, I'm going to Mexico. President's Club? President's Club Trip. And I knew when I left, when I came back, things were going to be different. But I didn't know how they were going to be different. All I knew was this was my one moment to go be, just go be. And that was the purpose of the trip is just to get away, shut everything down and just be because I did not know how we were going to pivot. But I knew we were going to need to pivot. And you know, the night before our last night there, of course, this was now a non-gill trip, but paid for by guild. And so we found in the resort is empty. I mean, there were ill people there and a few other families and that was it. So we're there, we're not bored, you know, we're having a good time, but yet it was just like that. It felt different. Yeah. It just felt different. So we ended up, one of the bartenders, we talked them into staying open late and we talked them into being able to just use their sound equipment and be our own DJ. And so we could just, you know, have a dance party and hang out at the bar. And we played that song, it's the end of the world as we know it. That was like the last song that we played before we all knew, okay, we got to go home tomorrow. It's going to be a new day. We don't know what it's going to look like. So knowing that I had just traveled through the airport and it's an international airport and I've been exposed to all these people and we don't know, you know, to what extent this virus spreads, all we know is, you know, everybody's a little worried. So I went to my link house to go quarantine. And I've got small grandchildren, so I'd rather than be around the family and be around everybody at the office, I went to our link house. So I picked up my video equipment. The only problem is my calendar is scheduled out months in advance. And so I have all of these events that I'm having to figure out how I'm going to shift and pivot and continue through all of the things that are on my calendar. So the pivot wasn't as strategic as it was just necessary in order to continue moving forward. So fortunately, everybody is dealing with the same thing at the same time. So for me, I teach a lot of classes and I do a lot of CE. Well, I had been wanting to do it virtually. I just had not, you know, people were just so used to being there in person that I couldn't make the mental shift and I didn't think they were ready for the mental shift. Now COVID, they don't have a choice. They want some CE hours that are sitting at home. There's nothing else to do. Let's just get educated. And at the same time, I thought that there's a lot going on that people need to know, not step by step, out of fear, but just be educated in the industry. And so it really, it wasn't, I had a Facebook private group already. Okay. How many in that roughly, every agent's right? So it was a group that, honestly, I've had for nine years. Wow. You've got a Facebook group for nine years. Yes. But the problem is I wasn't really utilizing it because I didn't really know it's true purpose. Other than I knew I wanted a private Facebook group for their local realtors. And so what they had gotten used to posting on there is who hasn't and here's what I have. You know, so they post their properties on that. Needs and wants. Yeah, those things. Yeah. Well, so I decided, you know what? I need to change the name of this group. So I changed the name of the group to get everybody's attention. Hey, this is new. This is different. So I changed the name of the group and I changed the purpose of the group to be one to share knowledge information into educate. Okay. So all of a sudden that became like the go to for all information. And I still have not, I've kept it to our local group or local as in our associations got four, five hundred members. You take out the affiliates and there's probably three hundred fifty four hundred members. And that's how many people I have in my group. Where are you in the country? I'm a North of Dallas. I'm in a small area in North of Dallas. So like Irving North of that. Sure. So I'm in Texas. Okay. And you only have about three hundred realtors in your board? Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, that's pretty, pretty small thing. Yeah, it's a small. It's a small thing. But you got them all. Yeah. Yeah. So that became like the place to go. Well, I also got a hold of Texas real estate commission and asked them what platform I needed to use in order to continue to provide CE virtually. Right. And so is what they are allowing for that. So I just should quickly shifted to all classes online. And then I also, so I do CE every two, every Wednesday at 10 o'clock. So on everybody's calendar now, that's the place to go on Wednesdays to be educated. And I also, on Fridays, I do a headlamp and I just started it as soon as I got back from Mexico. I started a real tour, headlamp, Fridays at one o'clock, just to give them the most updated information based on what has transpired during the week. So that's like market updates, forbearance stuff, all that, mm-hmm. Right. Okay. So anyway, the CE classes, so I was trying to do, we thought we were going to go back to doing live classes as of next Wednesday, but we're still going to do on CE. So I do a 10 week series, training series for realtors that start with business planning, time management, lead, you know, building a referral based business and generate those leads, tracking those leads, all of that stuff, and we start that series next Wednesday. Is that CE approved? Yeah. Every one of them. Um, and is it in our board, and our board office, if every, if people, if the agents attend all 10 classes, they'll get a free quarter of MLS dues. Um, what's the total CE credits they get for those 10 weeks? 10, it's one, it's one hour classes. Okay. And what are they pay for that? $10. $10 per class? Okay. Got it. Nice. You can manage the money side of that, or do you have help with that? I manage it. Um, well, my assistant, Rachelle manages it. Yeah. But you're collecting, you could cut cards or something? Yeah. No, I'm just doing bidmilling paypal. Really? Yeah. Okay. Venmo. I paypal is cool because that's easier for you to manage. Venmo, I don't know. That's probably a little bit extra challenging. Um, no, because you get a monthly report. Okay. I get the receipt and I can, you know, I mean, they've got to pay within 20 hours. We can turn in the paperwork and, and yeah, it's been easy. Wow. That's amazing. 10 week series. And you're leading each one of those. Uh-huh. Yeah. You want to see a copy of it? That's a lot of work. Yeah. Hang on. I just had one of our, um, so you were doing that in person before the 10 week? Yes. Okay. Got it. You, do you think, um, by the way, of all the classes you do, are they all CE or some are not? All of them are CE. Can you see? Yes. I have this is planning for success, controlling the chaos, effectively follow up, understanding personality types, which is the test, um, understanding mortgage basics, pre-qual versus pre-approval, and we'll go into COVID and forbearance and all of that, obviously, understanding the title commitment because it is amazing. I, I'll get, I, oh, that class will feel because most people don't even know how to read the title commitment. It's crazy. It's dang thing ever. Like, they don't even know schedule C exists. It's, it's just nuts. And then understanding the closing disclosures. So, um, those are the classes that we're offering on this series. Yep. Guys, which one's an hour? 34 or 5678. You know what? They cut it by two. It's normally 10 weeks, which the, the other, the other class that is, um, typically in this. So we do this twice a year. And again, we were doing them live. Now we're going, uh, virtual, um, you do a twice a year, but in between that, are you doing other classes? Every Wednesday, 10 o'clock. Yeah. All right. I'm trying to follow. Maybe I'm a little slow here. It's kind of hot in Vegas. Twice a year. You do 10 weeks session. 10, 10, twice a year. I do this course, but I change it up because remember, I can't do the same business planning. There'll be a different business planning class because they can't, you know, I mean, I, every, I have enough classes that they can come to the classes and the 10 week series and, and still be able to get CE credit twice a year. So I'll change this up enough that the cons so that they can still get CE. Got it. You got it. So I do this series twice a year, but I'm still going to continue to do those Wednesday, and when this series is over, I'll just have random classes, Wednesdays, 10 o'clock. One of these or some other classes as well. Other classes. Got it. Okay. I have like various stuff, whatever. Yeah. I have 30 CE's approved. Wow. Really? Yeah. From what I might experience getting classes approved in Texas from somebody I know who did it seemed relatively easy. Very. Yeah. It's different in every state, but interesting. But you know what? That's good stuff, whether it's CE or not. Well, I was always going to, I was going to say a lot of people like asked like I do classes to them. People are like, Hey, are your classes CE approved? I'm like, No, but go get them approved in your own state and don't hang your hat on CE. Right? It's the indicator. Yeah. You know what? I have decided though, Jeff is I, I, I, I don't chase realtors anymore. They're attracted to me. Yeah. I was putting your thing as well. You changed the whole dynamic, right? Because you used to do it. Everybody else do chase, call. Let's meet for coffee, all that stuff. And so how long have you had this educational platform? Two years. Two years. Wow. Okay. And that changed the game for you. Yeah. And what ends up happening is you'll have, you know, it doesn't for me. This is a good way for me to within a series of classes. You know who hasn't and who doesn't like who you want to do business with and who has some potential and needs just a little bit of help in nurturing. Yeah. And I've always picked at least one, if not two agents that I can really help them build their business and take it next level. All right. So that's a good kind of pivot then. How do you take people and I know and so you've only been doing the online version since COVID, right? Right. All right. So take me back a step before when you were doing in person. I'm going to guess, you know, having done this just like you, but what was, did you have a very specific defined post class process for in person and then what's that look like now? Yeah. So what we were doing is, you know, you'd have it twice in the series, I'd have a group of three or four people that said, Hey, I want to continue doing something like this. And I just set up for every other week. We would get together in a small group and do a group coaching session with those agents. And you would still just end up with the one or two that stick with it. Yeah. And those one or two that stuck with it are still folks that I help with in, you know, building their business and market strategies and all of that stuff still to this day. So now in this, I, and then I've had some that come to me and just say, Hey, listen, I mean, they just become coaching sessions basically at that point. You just pivot them to small group coaching, coaching sessions. Yep. Okay. And then now are you doing small group via Zoom? Yes. Or at some point, are you invited people to join on your Facebook group too on my real tour group? Yeah. I'm constantly looking for those agents in the, you know, that are in the community that may not be part of the association that to send invites to you. Yeah. Oh, it's just like during your classes, when you teach C and all that kind of stuff, are you putting that out there as a call to action? Hey, if you're not a member of the, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's, it's on my, it's on my regular Facebook page. So anybody can join anywhere and what's your, you got everybody in there anyways? Yeah. But no, I mean, because it's virtual, I can be given CE credit anywhere in Texas now. I do. Right. Ah. Interesting. So have you expanded them and gotten agents outside at Sherman? Uh-huh. Yeah. So I've been expanding into the Dallas market that are not in that private Facebook group because of the postings on Facebook and their Zoom. So anywhere in Texas, they can be sitting in their kitchen on the table doing these CE classes and get to know me. And so you've gotten a few, like some new referral partners in Dallas because of this. Yeah. Yeah. Um, very cool, very cool. What about, um, there's a lot of questions popping up for me and it's funny because this is the interview right here, right? So I haven't recorded so here you go. Oh, you do? Uh, cool. We're done then. That's awesome. All they need to do is put an intro and some editing. We do. I wish I had known I would have my better camera on right now, I got the lousy camera. But anyway, um, okay, so where was I classes, how active are you personally in the Facebook group? Well, here, I'll just pull it up, you want to see it? So I'm actually not in full interview mode. But if you want to call this the interview and be done, it's your time's valuable, I'm open to that. It doesn't matter. Whatever. Um, you might, uh, you, you could, uh, since this is recorded, we could do another interview and then you can cut and paste and do whatever you want with it. Yeah. Um, because I never say the same thing twice, so exactly, right? But now that I think about that, I just might go like, uh, I mean, this is just my interactive group. But, you know, I had, I did a TikTok video on, hey, you got hand sanitizer who wants some and have several people go, oh my gosh, I do. But then they never kind of pick it up their bag and sanitize it. Uh, so I see right here, you got a realtor here asking who would recommend an, an idea, you know, so they're here to help each other. Here's my, you know, update on the state of forbearance. And you can see, I mean, pretty decent, uh, participation. Here's someone looking for, oh, that reminds me, he's got a birthday today. I gotta write that down. Hey, hey, hey, um, for Colby, yeah. So here's the thing. All right. I have a number of elbows that have some Facebook roots and there's varying levels of success and engagement. Like one gal, she does a great job and then other person struggles. Um, any secrets off there, it looks like you're pretty active, right? That's number one. Um, well, number one, be active and be true to who you are. I mean, that's what folks all the time talk post like he would be talking to somebody and don't change it up. Just be who you are. And I think sometimes people try to be too formal and you, you can't, these are where people get to know who you are. So for you, are you going live inside the group or videos or anything like that? I have some. Hey, look at this virtual idea that I've had. I'm not sure how I'm going to roll it out. Can you see it? Yeah. So I'm not sure how I'm going to roll it out, but I think I think I'm going to do this as an open room and Facebook and just post, hey, you've got any questions about buying a home. I'm, you know, my room's open for it's number of time. Yeah. And then just start doing that as a virtual for home buyers, not, not agents. Yeah, but yes, I do sometimes do lives in here. Mm-hmm. Anyway, and the agents are pretty active in there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Okay. So how now are you with the whole shelter and place thing? How have you, well, what is your new post event process look like to drive conversations with agents and get referrals ultimately, right? Yeah. I mean, for me, I wasn't that much out of my office already. So it really hasn't changed for me, other than I'm not doing the classes in offices, I'm just doing virtually. So my conversations are still, I still text is a big thing for me. Facebook messaging is a big deal for me, providing education and information on Facebook and then just being through to who I am is a big deal for me. So really, COVID hasn't changed my business that much. Do you think you're going to go back to doing some in-person classes? I will still always do virtual. I've been wanting to shift to virtual anyway. I think I'm going to, right now where I'm sitting at my desk, I think I'm going to have a whole studio setup, it's more classroom studio, so I have my whiteboard and all of that good stuff. Go ahead and have a Bluetooth lapel and get my lighting and everything, and I'm just going to go virtual for all of my classes so I can reach all of Texas. I want to be the educator in Texas that everybody wants to take the class because it's fun and they get a lot out of it. Yeah, no, I applaud that, first of all, 100%. What I'm thinking and asking is, using this educational platform as a top of the funnel right for charging. So for me, the engagement, you're right, it does make it a little bit more challenging because I can't eye contact and have engagement with the Asia to pick those one or two that I think get it. So it is going to be a little bit more difficult to find those people to coach on individual level, but now I get what your question is. So that's, I don't know how I'm going to do that other than what I have found is that I have like four people that I can think of right now that have attended all of my CE's that I have not talked to in years that are now sending me business. And so I've had a lot more conversations that with these agents and helping them off the call and outside of the CE classes. So the engagement is different. The engagement now is more based on attendance and based on engagement chatting. You know, and it is more of a challenge, you know, Jeff, you've been doing this for a long time. You know how hard it is to keep up with the chats and the engagement. And then if you're going to stream live at the same time, you're trying to keep people engaged here. So it does become a lot more of a challenge and looking at the camera instead of looking at the monitor and all of the things that you have to consider now. Yes. Because I got to look at the camera for eye contact, but I got to watch you for engagement. Yeah. Yeah. Do you use the zoom meeting or webinar version? I've been using meeting. What is the webinar version? Well, the meeting is obviously the Brady Bunch, right? All the, you know, just keep on video. Webinar takes all that away pretty much. Okay. I'm using the meeting so I can see everybody. Exactly. And I've asked a bunch of LOs, what do they prefer and they prefer that because you can see everybody and it's more like you're actually engaged. Right. Now, you know, the other challenge. So I also teach, I teach within our region and so the, the reason that I've continued to do that is because I'll end up with 50 to 70 people on one call, so it teaches me to not only watch the Brady Bunch screen, but the attendance over on the side too becomes more of a challenge and then engaging them through chat, but still keep in the conversation going. So it is a challenge and it is different, but I will continue to do it because I don't feel like I've mastered it and so I'll keep doing it until I think I figured it out. But, but like prior to COVID, when you're doing the in-person classes, would you say for our agent engagement and awareness in your local area, the, the classes was your number one. Oh, soverse. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And like you said, two years ago, you kind of shifted and pivoted. No more chasing. I'm going to do classes and attract people to you. Right. Okay. I want to make a suggestion here. I don't know if you've thought about this yet, but with the post zoom class, one way to drive conversations with agents who may not know you yet, but you want to have a conversation with them is what we've been doing is at the end of a zoom meeting, you can have a URL redirect when that meeting ends and you can redirect them to your calendar or your calendar. Okay. They wanted a schedule time on your calendar for a trip. Oh. Okay. All right. Cool. I did not know that. Awesome. So did you just put that little thing at the end? Hey, if anybody wants to talk further, right? I'm looking for a few select agents to partner with. They'll be a link at the end. Boom. It comes up and that's all like just schedule time on my calendar, you know? Awesome. Kind of takes you out of the loop. Yeah. So we're testing that and that, you know, it's all about just getting to who wants to work with you, you know? Right. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's the one thing that I'm working on is we as salespeople want to be everything to everybody. Yeah. Instead of being truly true to who we are and being, being okay with that and just attracting more of who we enjoy doing business with instead of trying to do everybody. Right. I, that, for sure, hey, let me ask you this if I can and I don't know what, well, how much time you had slotted for this because it's, it's not our, like, you know, I love it. We're just going with the flow here. But normally what I didn't collect this up front is and, and, um, give us a sense or if anybody's listening, right, average, like units or volume production, everybody wants to know that, of course, right? So, um, my, I, I have hit at or above 300 units for the last three years, um, volume for me is a little bit different because I'm in small, small town, USA, you know, anywhere from 48 to 55. Yeah. For me, the, the, the bank spark is units anyways, no matter what. Well, yeah, because that's what you got to scale to. Yeah. Exactly. You know, the volume pays the bills, but the units determine how many people you need to make it happen and still provide great service. And what does your team look like in terms of, you know, how do you manage all that volume? So I have a team, I have, I have four on my, I have four on the front end and then I have a process or on the back end. What does front end mean? What do they do? So front end for me is lead to contract. So the, the front end lead to contract once the loans disclosed and we do our basic checklist, it goes to processing and processing totally handles it from there. And are you taking apps 10 or 3s or how's that? I do not take any 10 or 3s. I don't process any pre-cost or pre-curables anymore. But a lot of that is because I mean, I'm just in that leadership role at this point, which I'm loving. And so that frees me up to lead the team. I have a branch, I have satellites, so there's 30 of us in the office, or I've got 30, 32 now on the team, you know, with the branch. And so that I take enough 10 or 3s and a process enough files that I know that that is not the best use of my time anymore, it's not because I'm too good for it, I'm just out of practice. I'm just not as good at it. Well, like you said, the key thing you said is everybody, you take notice you're at a different role, you're in a leadership role, right? You're building a business is what you are, you're not, you're not in sales per se. And you know, let me just tell you this is one thing and I've got coaching calls all afternoon, and I think the biggest struggle right now is I looked up, I'm staffed as a branch to handle about 75 loans, 75 to 85 loans. We're closing 154 this month. So the leader in me goes, oh crap, I got to help everybody, I've got to do this, I got to do that. And so then you jump into, you know, you think that you're helping and you're really not. So this is the analogy that I was telling and all of the top producers that I've had conversation with feel the same way, they just feel so bad for the team, they think they're going to help the team out by jumping in and rescuing them and nobody's asked for a life rat, right? Right. So the best thing you can do, I've hired, I've hired a coach, she's, she's a life coach, but she specializes on that mom, mom coaching. And so I've hired a mom coach at my teens on a call at noon today for an hour. I don't know how much time you have for any of this conversation. You can cut me off whenever, but once a week for one hour, just for the moms that are at home, they've been struggling with the homeschool, they're working 12, 13 hours, they've got kids that just want to be hugged and loved on and they want to hug and love on their kids, but yet this, they've got to get this foul submitted by, you know, whatever time and they got all these, you know, and they hear their phone going off, they hear emails going off, they hear team chat going off and they're just an overload, right? So it's that one hour they just totally shut it off and just, just go be and work on mindset and mindfulness and, you know, learning that it's okay to self-care and shut it down. And it's really like, I even, I told the team last night, listen, close down for two hours in the middle of the day and go outside and play with your kids. Go hug and love on those kids because they, you need them and they need you. Yeah, I'm upset. You're working at home right now. You can't put it back on at 10 o'clock after you've taken care of your family. That's, that's awesome. But here is what I was thinking. This is the analogy that I had. You know the song, Ro Ro Ro Ro, you're about, right? Well, you know, I was thinking that song was stuck in my head because another friend of mine was singing the song and telling the story yesterday and so now it's totally stuck in my head. It's definitely stuck in yours too now. The, whenever you're doing Ro Ro Ro Ro, you're about, with you, really look at the history of, of the competition, Ro Ro Ro's, right? They have, I can't remember the, the formal name, but it's the Cox. The guy that, you know, is, right, sitting in that seat. Yes. And his job is to be in that seat and he's in that leadership role. He's watching once ahead. He's looking, let's be kind. He's paying attention. He's making sure everybody's in sync. That's our job. And for us to get out of that seat and go grab a row and start rolling too, does not help the team, right? Yeah, and that's as you know, that's a journey for people to get there. And some people will never get there, right? Because that's their own personal choice or whatever. Yeah. So you ask about production. That's not, that is, that's not what my team needs for me. Yeah, no, no, I get it. No, I just, I just asked the question because it's, it put, for me, it establishes that here you are, Michelle Castle, like still sleeves rolled up, doing mega units and stuff. And yet you're still leading from the front. You're still clearly passionate about this. What you, you're not passionate about taking loans, 10 or 3s, right? You're passionate about the leadership role and changing people's lives, both your team and the people you help. Yeah, but that's that, you know, that's that conversation. Sometimes those top producers need to hear that it's, it's okay. I mean, like, you don't have to be apology. You don't take 10 or 3s anymore. And I still struggle with that. Well, so, so that's also two more quick questions, I guess. And then we'll wrap up one is the team concept. And I don't know if Acadia mentioned this to me. But oftentimes I hear L.O.'s struggle with the team concept and people feeling like they, they, they aren't getting the, they're not getting Michelle Castle. Right. You come, you come across that? All the time. So how do you deal with that? So I, my conversation with that customer, you know, if I've got an agent I've worked with forever or, or it's a new agent and they say, Hey, I've got, I've got someone that really needs to talk to you. I'll make that introduction phone call. And that call is an introduction and an edification of my team and edification of whoever referred them to me. So it's just an introduction and edification and then just make them feel special that they're doing business with us. And so I still, my tendency used to be and still sometimes I'll go ahead and take some basic information from them. But I'm still going to hand them off to the team and edify the team and have them handle it from there. So people still feel like they got me. Now I can't do that for 150 people a month. But I can when it's necessary and you know, I mean, everybody thinks that they need me, but every one of the calls, when people call in for me, it goes to Dylan. And Dylan answers and says, I mean, that to the customer, that was my extension. And I was on another line and Dylan picked up so that they didn't go to my voice now. And then he knows how to handle that call and just takes it from there. And they discover real quickly that they need me in the first place. What I'm hearing and I've heard this from other people at your level, which is it's about setting the expectations up front with the partner and with the client to know that this is my team and when the issues, this is who you're going to be dealing with for this, this, this, and this. So there's no like, hey, how come I'm not getting Michelle? Well, maybe the expectations were set wrong. Right. Exactly. And then the other thing that we've been working on is like Dylan, who's my front person, is doing the updates to the agents. What's going on? So that you're hearing from him. And I asked him to start sending videos to them. We're really big with videos and bomb bomb. Okay. Start sending the videos directly to them to build that record. So people get to know him. That's brilliant. So your frontline person is sending a one off bomb bomb video about status update on Smith file. Yes. And then he's sending videos just, you know, just regular marketing videos. Hey, this is what we see going on right now in the market. So it is not always about me. Yeah, because at the end of the day, if they trust the person on your team, they no longer need you. So I think we just need to do a better job of edifying our team and helping empower the team to build that trust with the referral partner and build the trust with the client. 100% love that. I have an applause button. It's just not turned on, right? So there's applause there. All right. So I think the last question is, you're clearly, you've taken another people I've interviewed again with top producers, right? Not everybody, but I do see a recurring trend of like Oleg, obviously one of your colleagues out on the West Coast. Basically is of the same, you know, Ilk, if you will, that you are, which is, you know, he's common, I don't remember exactly, but was like, you know, we need to become coaches for real estate agents. And some elbows question that, disagree, struggle with it. What do you say to that? Well, each realtor is unique in their own way, and they have their own, you know, experience in history. So many of them do not have the experience of running a business. And that's what they're doing. And so if that's your skill set, teach it. If your skill set is marketing, teach it. Whatever your skill set is, I promise they need you. You just need to figure out what it is that they need. And do you have the skill set to help them? Or do you know somebody you could connect them with that will help them? What if an LLO is in that box of like, my skill set is closing loans? That's my value prop. Um, well, I speak to it, you know, but find still every one of those agents are struggling with something. Maybe it's they're not good at writing the property descriptions. And you know someone that you could refer them to that could. You still got to figure out what their pain point is. So you close, you close loans. You communicate well, and you make sure everything goes smoothly. But they still have a struggle, figure out what the struggle is and still be the fixer. You don't have to be the one to help them, but you could be the one that refers them to somebody who can help whatever the pain point is. Well, I wasn't the educational platform for you. Are you just passionate about teaching or you have a teacher's heart? Um, I'm passionate about teaching or sharing information. I still don't really see myself as a step-by-step teacher, but I do like sharing information. I like helping people understand the why behind it all. And it was just leverage. In one hour, I can reach 10 people. Preferably my classroom is 10 between 5 and 10, because I can gauge engagement and I can have more intimate conversations. I prefer not to have a room full, not that I'm scared to be on stage, or it's just from that intimate. It's easier to manage, yeah. Yeah, it's just intimacy thing. But it was just leverage, leverage of time. Yeah, yeah. And then after I did it because of the leverage, leverage was the why, but once I started doing that, I really, I really dug it. So. And obviously it benefited. Let's bring it back full circle. Leverage, wide net, getting exposed to a lot of agents in a way that serves you just to kind of put that cap back on it. Don't forget what you talked about was two years ago, you weren't doing this, you pivoted, and you've, did you grow your business, you think, because of that? Absolutely. And, you know, I coach to this all the time. You know, if you, if you want to top grade your business partners, start doing education. So you have a wider net, and you can start filtering people through that wider net. Um, but at the same time, the, um, I was going somewhere with that. Uh, oh, so yes, my business has grown. Well, let's back up. My business has been consistent on purpose because I want it to be scalable. And what I have been shifting is, I've gone to educating agents instead of chasing agents, which frees up my time to do a better job of loving on my database. So that was part of the shift for me, is educate and attract the, the agents that I wanted to do business with. So I could top grade. And then I can spend more time, um, on my database and the repeat referral business, which I, I mean, I wanted 50% of my business to come from non-realtor referrals. And we hit that mark last year, 55% this year, of course, we'll blow that out of the water because of repass. But even if you took those repass out of the picture, I still want to continue to grow. My goal is 60% of my business in year three of doing what I'm doing on my, with my database to grow that business. Um, year three to be at 60% and then I'll just continue from there. So what that does is attracts agents again because now I'm generating referrals out of my own database. People that already love us, people that already trust us. And then now I'm able to give referrals to the agents that I like to do business with. And I've been able to top grade and attract those agents through education. So it's kind of a full circle thing that was just really strategic. Um, so you're two main, main buckets of biz are database and realtors. You haven't messed around yet with like running Facebook ads or trying to go consumer direct or something like that. Any consumer direct I do is just because I'm, I'm very active on social. So they're just attracted to just maybe an authentically me on social. We're just attracts a ton of people. Do you anyways? That's awesome. Okay, cool. Listen, I think we nailed it. Okay, we nailed it. Yeah. I mean, seriously, I'll do it. You just send me the link to the recording after we're so I can download it. So let me close out by just saying, you know, just make it official. Hey, if anybody wants to reach out to you, Michelle, how do they find you? Um, Facebook. Michelle Castle, I don't think so. I don't think so. Um, but my website is just Michelle castle.com. And it's got all my contact information in my email. So that's probably the easiest way to just connect Michelle Castle.com. Well, I appreciate it. I'm glad this just one off the cuff call turned into an amazing discussion. Thank you. Okay, all right. Thanks. Take care. 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. 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