Dominating Your Local Market With Google Reviews

Hey listeners, Jeff Ziffer, mortgage market radio. Thanks for tuning in. Appreciate you making time to check out our latest episode and it is a good one before we get to that. This episode is brought to you by, you can tell these are live hot mic infos, right? This episode is brought to you by the managing classes platform. As you may well know by now and I wanted to share with you a couple of quick updates and success stories. I'm reading a post in our private Facebook group right now from Glenda White and Glenda is in the Texas area and Glenda has been with us for quite a while now as one of our OG VIP members. What's up, Glenda? Shout out to you. Glenda decided to do some tracking in terms of sources of business for her and I think the last quote I saw from her was a month ago. Roughly she had closed about 7 million in loans and fundings if I'm correct exclusively from agent referrals that had attended her classes in that month by the way that she closed. And so she posted this in our Facebook group broke down. So one of the things Glenda does is partner with title reps and so overcoming the challenge of how do you get butts and seats with agent classes. One of the ways to do that is team up with affiliates and partners. One of those affiliates can be title reps, right? And so Glenda has some stats here and she's reviewing how many agents have attended her classes exclusively from title reps. By the way, this is not her inviting not her calling doing nothing but hosting a class and teaming up the title rep. Well, according to the stats here, she just published 66 agents of the classes she has put on this is from February through September 66 agents. She's been in front of right for these classes. 17 of the 66 are on the real producers top 500 list for 2023. 15 have sent at least one lead. 22% are talking with me right now. Me, me and Glenda, she's engaged in conversations and or referring business right trying to close business together in right and all the issues with the market of trying to close. But so 15% have said at least one lead 15% of those 22% she's engaged in talking within the referring business. Either way, the key point she makes is 22% are referring business, meaning they're advocating on Glenda's behalf. Their Glenda is their go to lender and Glenda honestly says in her post, it's incredible to think that she could be doing more follow up more one on ones right to get better even better results. But I ask you, what are your metrics? Do you even know? Do you know your sources of business? Do you know which agents? Do you have affiliate partners advocating on your behalf putting you in front of quality referral partners? Listen to Glenda's numbers. You might want to duplicate that same thing for you. And on that note, one of her other members Kevin Dwyer, what's up Kevin? Hosting our chat GPT class just hit max registration 50 agents signed up and the title company is picking up the launch tab. Market share, land grab, building your personal brand, capturing attention. There's a void in the market. There's space. There's less noise. You can go hide like a lot of others or you can enter the market in a bigger way and building a bigger platform. One that allows you to rise above the noise, get attention, get engagement, and get referrals like Glenda and like heaven. So what do you do now? Well that's up to you. But if you want to see if this is a fit for you, I'm happy to chat. You can go to mortgage marketing.pro, schedule a call on my calendar. I'll make time available. We'll get acquainted. And we'll see if it's a fit. mortgagemarketing.pro. Okay, this week my special guest, I'm really thrilled to be able to talk to this individual who I recently met at the aim fuse event in Las Vegas. And Wade Betts is just a rock star long time veteran in the business. He's approaching a billion dollars in total loans funded over his career. And Wade was at the aim fuse event talking about Google business profile and the importance of having a optimized Google business profile. And what it can mean to the impact to your business. Wade has at this moment, 194 Google reviews, 195 star Google reviews. I should point out and Wade and I kind of unpack a lot of different things on this conversation. Part of it is we unpack his strategy for getting Google reviews, how he does it, what his script is, what his process is, all of that. And then, of course, we're punching in and out of different topics like, you know, percentage of business, he gets from his past client database. What does he do there? Wade is one of the most structured intentional mortgage professionals I've spoken to. And you'll hear that in today's conversation. When he unpacks his daily method of operations, his calendar blocking and all the metrics that he's measuring. Remember, what gets measured improves. What gets measured and reported improves exponentially. So if you're not measuring your activities, if you're not measuring the results, then how do you know what's really working? And how do you know where you can be effective? How do you know what to add your attention to? How do you know what to perhaps reduce or eliminate altogether? So it's great conversation. We talk a lot about classes. Wade is, of course, an advocate of agent classes as a source of agent business and so forth. And so also social media Instagram. Really, really great. Just all around, you know, unpacking and looking at somebody who's a phenomenal individual, but also a phenomenal producer. And somebody that I definitely respect in this business. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you do, please share it with somebody. Leave us a review without further ado. Let's get into this week's show. Wade, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Jeff. I appreciate you having me here. Yeah. Really good to, we just ran into each other at fuse. Is that correct? That's right. Yeah. We've been connected for years now and finally got to see each other in person. Right. Fantastic. And you had a, well, before I get into that, why don't you for those who are familiar with Wade Betts? How long in the biz? You know, what do you want to share about your, your career, your, you know, lifetime to date? Right. 18 years in, basically, 14 of which were spent in retail, had a wonderful retail experience. Last three to four have been in wholesale. And that's gone quite well as, as well. And the topic that I spoke on at fuse was about a Google business profile. And frankly, the, the, the journey that I had from retail to wholesale makes that topic even more important because our brand is more important is bigger than the company that you work for. 100%. I'm a big believer that a healthy business is a portable business. And so I need to make sure that my reputation can follow me wherever I go. Not that you want to go and jump ship and, and change environments often. But the reality is, if you, if you have all your eggs and a corporate provided basket. And I'll just, like, just be super transparent here. The first go around that I had with collecting reviews. It was an internal system that the outside world couldn't see. Right. And, and frankly, I was worried that if I were to leave at some point, I would lose hundreds of reviews. And so very early on, I pivoted from those types of captive platforms to a Google business profile, which I controlled. And I, my only regret was that I didn't do it sooner, frankly, because I've held thousands of families over my career. And, you know, even though I've got 200-ish reviews, just think of what could have been, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, we're all guilty of that at some level, right? Oh my God. So true. So that's kind of the, the journey that I've, that I've gone on. It's really important that you control your own destiny with your own reputation. And yes, your company should facilitate that, but you're the brand. Right. All right. We're going to, we're going to put a pin in that for second and come back to that. It's going to be a theme of what we talk about. I also want to make it clear, like you're no slouch in this business, right? I mean, I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile. Are you going to, you're approaching a billion dollars in funding career soon? Getting there. If years like this wouldn't happen, I'd be very faster. Yeah, man. So you are definitely a major player in terms of, right, how we measure it, so to speak, right, in the industry, units and volume. While I'm on that for a second, so here we are October, 2023. What would, how are you adjusting and pivoting to the current shift? What, was there anything that you've done and like, you know, fourth quarter changed the play kind of stuff? Anything you want to share on that? I would just say that you've got to work harder than you ever have before. So, you know, fat cats that have been in the industry for a long time. Honestly, I feel like we're at a disadvantage over a lot of the newer talent that has come in the industry, because we remember how good it used to be. And they don't know any different. We're romantic about that, right? Yeah. Oh, back when we reached with this. Well, no one cares. Like work now, you know, like the sign over my shoulder that working until you don't have to introduce yourself, I'm still working on that. And that actually takes me to what I have done over the last three or four quarters is really take my social presence much, much more seriously. So, don't get me wrong. You have to make the phone calls and see the people and have all the analog pieces to your business. But the digital presence is key. So, my coach and mentor, he encourages me to post video content multiple times per week to essentially attract people to my brand, because my brand is winning with Wade. So, I will make sure you either win with me or because of me, but you'll win because we're together. So, that's the, I even got my own merch and everything. Oh, you did. Cool, man. Nice. Yeah. I'm on your Instagram right here. We're going to link up all your stuff by the way, your Google, your Instagram in the show now is for people listening, but it is winning with Wade on Instagram. All right. So, I got to ask this question I usually ask is what is or has been your number one source of business. So, I'm very heavy pass client database actually more than 50% of my closings every single year come from my pass client. So, for those of us that have been in the industry, if you're neglecting your database, you're making a massive mistake. Those people already hopefully no like can trust you. So, just pick up the phone. It's only weird if you make it weird. Like, right now, every day, I call people that are having their birthdays the following day. So, every Monday, I'm calling everyone that has a birthday on that Monday and then Tuesday. Tuesday, I'm calling people that have birthdays on Wednesday. Wednesday, I'm calling people that have birthdays on Thursday. Thursday, Friday, Friday, I'm calling Saturday and Sunday every single day. So, I track it because my coach makes me report back to him. Sounds like you got a good coach. Yeah. Monday, I've made 10 birthday calls, Tuesday, eight, Wednesday, 10. Today, I've made seven. Is that really that simple, Wade? Yeah. And it's just, it's really simple. Hey, just wanted to reach out and wish your happy birthday. I'm going to be talking meetings tomorrow and not able to call them, but I just wanted to give you some well wishes. Hopefully you have a great day full of friends and family. If any of those friends and family need a mortgage, let me know. But seriously, happy birthday and call me, if you need me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the same message. Other live dials, you're not doing ringless voicemail drops. No, no, I'm manually typing the number on every single one of those. How many of them go to voicemail roughly? I track that. I get about a 22% talk rate. Wow. It's cool. So and then it helps because I also send a handwritten birthday card leading up to that. And I'll put a, and I actually have it right here, a $1 scratch off ticket in there. And I'll put a post script that says, shoot me an email at and I'll put my email address and let me know if you win. Well, about half the people do it. And when they do, they usually reply back with their best and most accurate email address. And then you also reference that with your CRM to make sure that your database is updated. So it's a really helpful tactic. The only downside is the guy at 711 thinks I have a gambling addiction because of a lot of tickets that I buy. What's the, I'm just now you get really curious. What's the biggest number you can recall? Does anybody let you know like 50 bucks, 100, 500 or anything? Or is it? Yeah, it's, it's a dollar ticket. So yeah. Yeah, it's a dollar scratch on. So you're not going to retire on it. But I'm just hoping that it brings some joy. That's pretty cool. All right. So that is awesome. And then where do you, what's next after that? Is it real estate agents or who? For sure. A big piece of what I do is real estate agents as well. Primarily, that was generated from the contracts that that I work. And then classes, you know, I know that's a passion project of yours. I love teaching. I did a significant amount of that during COVID. But, you know, leading up to that. And I'm talking the years leading up to that, you know, when you first start teaching classes, you just decide one day to do it. And you could be the only one that shows up that month. That's okay. Or there could be one person or 10. But I did that for years before I got an introduction to a title company who asked, Hey, you, you teach, you've got all the content. We've got the CE platform. We need instructors that know what they're doing. Can you come in and teach? And that, that has led to, I'm not exaggerating. I think I even told you that views. I think during the two years of of COVID, I taught 66 different classes and got in front of 891 different real estate agents. All virtual cards, right? And all that was virtual. And even now that you're obviously able to get back in front of people, 80% of it's still virtual. So I'll do 20% where it's live in person. But, but most of it's virtual. And I'll tell you, the smaller brokerages out there, the ones that aren't the color Williams of the world where they have all the built out incredible training, they need people to provide educational content as a value add to their agents. So you can set up and I have about three brokerages that have become in every month and teach classes for them as a continuing ed type event. I even went so far as to open a CE school in Texas so that I can offer this as CE credits going forward myself. So I've not had to rely on other companies to facilitate that for me. That's very smart, very smart. Like no joke, I've got all of the applications right here to for 27 new CE classes that I'm submitting this week. Yeah, and I understand Texas, it's relatively easy for CE approval. Yes, it took some paperwork, but it wasn't it wasn't that common. Well, what I mean by that is so quick sidebar here for those listening, but like I know of other people in other states who's like California, I think is one where like they get you got to jump through all these hoops and you got to like edit your slides and like all this stuff and it's really just such a wall. And so that's why my usual default, you know, answer to people when they ask about CE is, you know, quote unquote, you don't need it because like my answer is always when people ask me, Hey, what's the number one secret to getting agents butts and seas at a class? I always say it's the title. It's just like a book. It's like the cover of a book that has to be a compelling, you know, headline. I don't know. Would you agree with that? I completely agree. So I I worried when I was teaching CE classes, well, why are they here? Are they here for the content or they hear for the CE credit because they have to be right? So if if the class you're offering is not CE approved, you know, they're there for the content. And I'll also just throw this in there. I always taught my classes in person at 10 or two. So 10 o'clock was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch. Right. And two was after lunch. So I didn't I'm not there to feed you really. I'm you're here for the content. If you want to grow your business, you're in my tribe. I will help you. But if you're here to be fed, go someplace else. All right. So out of those classes, you've taught in your career, you built a database of roughly 800. That was just during COVID. And this is a very hard question, but I got to ask it because it makes me really curious. Like, can you dotted line then in terms of, you know, the challenge most LLs have in getting in front of agents, right? The usual stuff that the the cold calls into this and that and everything that people do. Obviously sound self-serving, but I'm of course preaching. Let's like leapfrog that and go right to classes. How would you score that or or rank your results for getting real to referrals leading with classes? So that's worked very well for me. I will tell you most of the top producing agents. It wasn't my experience that they would show up to an in-person class like that. However, I will tell you you will get far far far better results. If after class, you have some, even if it's an automated content drip that reinforces whatever the topic is, you will engage and capture more of those agents in your in your net. Then if you just taught the class, said thank you and didn't follow up. So obviously the the money's in the follow-up and the more thought out that can be, the better results you'll have. And that was before I had a tech stack with Bonzo in it. So I was having to manually do a lot of a lot of that follow-up and it's hard. So I've got great systems. However, it's always able to be improved. So I'm doing this over again. Every single one of those classes has probably a four week drip that reinforces the topic because now we're to the next month's class. And then when they when they roll off that four week drip, they go into my long term nurture campaign just to stay in front of them indefinitely. So that's how if I was doing it over again, that's how I would do it. Yeah, and then when you think about piecing all the pieces of the puzzle together, social the follow-up calls, like it's really like this puzzle that all comes together when and of course you're probably capturing content for your classes, especially if it's in person, you get to repost those videos and pictures and all that stuff. So back to what we're going to now put it back to is personal brand is you're building your personal brand and a way and a lot of people talk about personal brand consumer direction all that, but few talk about personal brand with real estate agents or referral partners. And like that's equally important because there's this brand perception of elbows as a whole. And then if you know you're trying to pursue agents, like if I don't see Wade no Wade, it's a it's a cold outreach. But if you're engaging with agents on Facebook or they're seeing your stuff and there's you know, oh look at he's doing a class over here today or he's at the board, like all that stuff bubbles up to be like, yeah, I've heard of Wade, who are you? I'll take your call. Yeah, I agree. It helps. I've like, and it feels good, but I've been at it for about a year now being intentional with my my social content with the digital side of the business essentially. But it feels good. So like literally the face to face that I had last week, that agent was talking to one of the title companies that I that I teach for. And they they said, Hey, like I'm having this problem. And that title company said you should follow Wade bets. And so she had been I didn't know. And she she reached out to me after weeks apparently and said, Hey, I've been following you for a while. I like what you're about. Can we meet for coffee? So and so says you're amazing. It's like, yes, yes, we can do that. And we met last week. So that's starting to happen with more frequency. And the key, other than consistency with it is to engage with people. So you can't hope to have people engage with you if you're not engaging with them. So I'm I'm in my Instagram DMs often. I have a time block. So eight to eight 30 every single day because I have my little calendar here every day. 20 likes 20 post comments, 20 story comments eight to eight 30. And then I have tried to keep my engagement rate on Instagram specifically around 10%. So it's been as low as five and it's highest 30, which is massive for essentially a business account, which is normally one to three percent. So explain what you mean by engagement rate. So essentially how many people that are engaging with your content messaging. And it's in being intentional with the right people. So like Jeff, I've got friends that have just massive followings. And so I'm I'm constantly like chirping up my social teams here's like, Hey, let's get like what do we need to do to get the the the follower account out and they keep reminding me it's the right followers that matter. So if you look at my Instagram, you'll see my help statement of who I serve. So I'm we're being very intentional about going after those specific people. I help build wealth and memories through real estate. Yes. With I wanted to ask you quick about the engagement rate, just to be clear for those. That's a you can look at that in your profile analytics, right? You can't so I post using Lumly. You don't have to use a software to do that. But I'm I'm filming a significant amount of content. So I'm I'm very time blocked. So once a week, I've got a two hour block of time to plan the content. So what am I going to say? Create the scripts, you know, get with chat GPT, map it all out. Like what am I going to film? And then I have a separate time block to actually film the content. I never I never do both at the same time because the planning frankly takes out a lot of energy and you just end up look like a like a whip puppy by the time you're done with it and you're not fresh for the actual filming. Yeah. So it's two different types of energy for sure. So you mentioned Lumly, you're managing your social platforms on, which is like a third party, like a hoot suite or a buffer or something like that. There's tons of them. Absolutely. So if you can natively post them on all the platforms, do it. You'll get better results is what I understand. But I don't have that bandwidth. So I use software. The only platform that I'm personally posting on is my personal Facebook feed for the Reels. But it's the same exact video that's going on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. That's the same thing that's going on my personal Facebook Reels. All right, down. I'm not currently posting any of that short form content on my YouTube channel. I specifically have YouTube set aside for long form content. Okay. And what types of long form content will you be doing there? So we mentioned off camera. I partner with Scott Shang with the Find My Way Home project. So essentially a lot of the content that we're creating, it's not sexy. I mean, it's about, you know, 80 use and how to house hack and you know, Fannie Mae just announced that they are going to allow two to four units with 5% down now, like just kind of getting into some of the boring mortgage content. Yes. That it's not, it's not exciting. Oh, I know. Just ridder at that. You know, it's truly boring. So the short form content on all the other platforms, that's kind of holding them in. But no one's really going to YouTube to take a deep dive into mortgages unless they are absolutely in the weeds with that at that exact moment. So it's just different bait, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And we can have a whole another conversation about YouTube. But let's bring it back to the conversation in our presentation. You gave at Fuse. You mentioned a moment ago, I said I put a pin in that personal brand. But what you made me curious was you were talking about how you couldn't control the reviews with that back in the day and you wanted to better control that. So obviously we're talking about Google business profile. Most people listening should be aware of what that is. But why don't you, maybe we can start here. What is your process for asking and getting reviews on Google specifically? Yeah. And let me before I answer that just when I ask the question to the audience, raise your hand if you have a Google business profile, only about a third of the audience raise their hand. All right. Well, it's your bigger issue question about like corporate and there's all those limitations around corporate too, right? That's exactly right. So if you have the ability to have your own Google business profile start there. Have it optimized, have it in a tie to an email address that you control. And make sure you're posting regularly. And then make sure you're asking for reviews, which Jeff is what you just asked me about. So essentially if you're going to get reviews, you have to earn the right to get reviews. So you have to care, create a referable experience. And once you've created that referable experience, then you can ask for referrals. So at the end of the process, the way I handled it, because I'm not attending most of my closings, I always do a post-closing honor call. You know, for one, they're getting thrown like a huge stack of documents. So I always want to make sure, hey, how did closing go? Do you have any questions about the phone book size stack of documents that you were asked to sign? Did you did your hand cramp up? I'll make a look. And the reality is most of the time they'll say no, but if they do have questions, I'll answer them. And then I'll just say, give them honor. You know, Jeff, it was it was really appreciate you trusting my team and I that helped with this. It means the world to us. Can I ask a favor? And ask away. Say, I'm looking to add as many five-star Google reviews to my businesses I could. If I shot you a link over, would you mind putting some kind words together for me? It would really mean a lot to me and my family. So here when I how I phrased it, I'm looking at our five-star reviews. So if you didn't think I did five-star, is please say nothing. You know, like you might say, if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all. And then I essentially said, it would mean a lot to me and my family because they're helping put food on my family's table. So they will say yes, because again, they're a nice person. And then I'll literally text them a link. And now Google has this really long link that you can send people. I have a vanity URL issue with GoDaddy. I've got like 125 different URLs. So I went and bought one that rolls off the tongue and I hide my Google page to it. So literally when leavewaiterreview.com. That's pretty obvious. Very subtle. So if I'm talking to you, Jeff, I'm going to say, hey, do you mind if I shot you a text and you can put some kind words together for me, you say, no, no problem. Send me over the link. So I'll send it and I've got it. It's kind of canned, but I'll customize it a little bit. But it's just a script, you know, a can little script. Thanks so much for talking to me, Jeff. Here's that link. It really means a lot to me. Thank you so much. But that's not the end of it, because people get busy. They just bought a house. They could forget. So my coach makes me do a seven day post closing check-in. How's everything going? Any after the fact questions? Thank you again for agreeing to leave me that review. I can't wait to see it. Let me know if you need me to rescind you the link. And then if I don't see anything there, I have one more follow-up two weeks later. So if you're doing them at that three weeks after closing, just wanted to check in one last time. Thank you again for being willing to leave me that review. It means the world to me. I'll stay in touch as this kind of transitions to a paying loan. Let me know if you need anything in the mean time. You know, you just did with that extra call two weeks after closing. If you look behind you yet to see all the L.O.s left in your dust, that's like going there. Yeah, that's exactly right. And so you start talking about, you know, helping them become a successful loan officer after closing with some of the things like just getting it to the closing table. That should be the bare minimum. And, you know, a mentor of mine, Ryan Grant, he's got that art of homeownership process, which is amazing. I'm a big, big fan of that mission. And so what are you going to do from closing beyond? Like that's the bar part, the next 30 years. So you have to make sure that the client knows that and getting a review on your Google business page is just part of that because it helps people find. So that was phase one. And I've done that with that exact process for years and years and years. Now in the beginning, when I was just getting started, I used one of these reputation management companies to help kickstart it. But, you know, Jeff, if I'm being honest here, I'm not busy enough to where I need to automate that right now. I can personally handle it. And frankly, I get better results by being the one actually asking for the review. So it matters that you're getting these pretty frequently. And I'm just talking one, two, three a month. It doesn't have to be dozens per month. But if if your clients are googling you and they are, and they see nothing but five star reviews, but they're all from, you know, six years ago, and they don't know that you're any good anymore. Yeah. So they need to see that you're consistent because your consistency is your character essentially. Oh, that's good. Your consistency is your character. Not mine. My mentor, he came up with that. So I'm just parroting his words. But he tells it to me all the time. I like that. Who's this this mentor coach? I got to ask a mere said with growth only. Oh, okay. Cool. There you go. Well, a mere now. I appreciate you buddy. Now you owe me a mere. There's a blog. I gotta come speak at your conference, a mere. All right. So your newest was a week ago for the Google business review. That's pretty fresh. Yeah. So get a couple per month is the reality of it. Okay. Can you, and again, I apologize if this is a difficult question, but you seem to be a guy who manages and, you know, tracks a lot of things. What can you say? So you've got 194 Google reviews, which is amazing. How can you say that's impacted your business? Any, any, you know, evidence or indicators? So I can only say the number of calls I get from it. So this is, this is the long game. Okay. So this is taking years to get to this point. I've talked to friends that have reviews that they don't get any calls. I get calls. And so I call this phase one. Phase one is up until literally this point where you're, you're consistently posting. You got an optimized profile. You're getting reviews consistency consistently. If you do nothing else, you're, you're doing great. Now, if you want to take it a step further with phase two, that's where you start worrying about backlinking to your website and doing some of these SEO things behind the scenes. So there's absolutely companies that can help with that as well. But that's where I'm at now. And, and a year from now, it'll be dramatically different. So Lily, you didn't know, I didn't know you're going to ask me that question. Today alone, I've gotten one call from my Google page, yet today I had two. They close at about a 17% rate. So not quite as strong as a warm referral, but way, way higher than a Facebook lead or some other type of lead. Well, and the other thing about that is they, they come to you already at the later stage of the bike cycle. Yeah, they have been things often early on that cycle. But the other thing too is they've read your reviews. They've probably like, by the way, do you know how you, how they're getting to your Google review? Are they doing some like, you know, mortgage broker near me type searches or any insights onto that? Yeah. So I, so if you, if you wanted to pull up an incognito page right now and type mortgage broker, Dallas, I would show up as number one in the three pack. If you search on an easy feed, by the way. Right. That the keyword broker, if you, if you change it to Dallas mortgage lender, instead, I'm not in a three pack. So if you expand that, I'm number five. So that's, that's pretty good. I'm, I'm very happy with that. And that will get better and better and better. The more intentional I am about the content I'm creating. Right. Backlinking it to my website. So when I mentioned earlier that I partnered with Scott Shang with their Find My Way home, every video that I film as part of his platform that goes on his website, will also go on my website that my team behind the scenes will backlink to to increase eyeballs on my content. So that's what I'm saying. A year from now, it'll be dramatically different. But even just in the last 24 hours, I've gotten three calls. Yeah. You know, I'll, I'll take it. No, I mean, like you said, that's phase one. And you know, there's only so much you can do, you know, at once when you still have to originate loans. So if any take away your listening to this right now, when you know your Google business profile is, you know, it's got some skinny legs, let's say, and you need to bulk those legs up. The first thing is to get a process around asking for reviews. I'd be here and curious to hear your, I've often, you know, suggested to realtors and or loan officers to go back to their past clients database and ask for the missed review they didn't get. Oh my god. Yes. Any coaching from that? What does that sound like for you? So again, I will say that most salespeople have a fear of calling their past client database, but in your own head, people think of us way less than we think that they do. Okay. So they haven't thought of us since the last time we reached out, which could have been years. And it's only weird if you make it. So Jeff, if I hadn't talked to you in years, that phone call to you would be, hey, Jeff, wait, that's over in my financial and be like, wait. Yeah, I know. I feel so bad. I can't even remember the last time I reached out to you, but I wanted to check in, see everything was going with the home, make sure you and the family are doing okay. And then do you mind? Could I ask you a favor? You know, say, sure, what's up? It's like, I feel terrible. I didn't ask this, you know, when we closed you, but I really enjoyed working with you. You want one of my favorite clients. If I could hit the universe reset button and only work with clients like you, I totally would, I would love it. If you would leave me a five star review for my Google business page, it would just mean the world to me. If I sent you a link, would you mind putting those kind words together for me? And you would say yes, because you're a nice human being. And I would say, okay, here you go. But then you have to follow up boom, boom, boom. So it's only weird if you make it weird. And it doesn't have to be that wordy. Obviously, naturalize it to your word, not mine. But it's important to do it via phone call, not an email or text. I've done both. You will get results if you just do a automated sequence of email. Closed automated sequence. Yeah. Yeah, you'll get, no, I'm talking about like if you even passed, yeah. Yeah, you know, 500 past clients, you're going to get reviews. You're also could piss some people off that maybe didn't have a five star experience. Yeah, you want to identify those maybe. Let's be real though. All of us should be talking to our past client database. So don't automate it. You have enough time on your hands right now. And you can pick up the phone and have a little three minute conversation about it and move on. Even if that was even a voicemail, I would say something very similar. And I would say, hey, just shoot me a text message back if it's okay to send you that link. I just don't want to impose. Hope you're doing amazing. Yeah, I mean, we could really, you know, double tap on this obvious activity. But it's kind of like getting yourself to the gym in some ways where you're like, I know I should, right? But then you're like, shit, I got to pack my bag. I got to drive. Like all the BS we come up with in our head, yet with the challenge today of activity and business and we're having a difficult time finding the business, even though business is still happening, I'll be at a much reduced rate. But I love the saying whoever came up with that I totally swiped it, which is conversations equals contracts. And it like, how else are you going to have conversations? You can have them on social, but what better place to have them with the past clients? Of course, the people that already know you like you. And yeah, I just, I don't know, I'm just hanging out going like, why wouldn't anybody call five past clients a day? Easily, at least have a birthday call, do an annual financial review, not an annual mortgage review, because no one needs an annual mortgage review, because they got a 3% rate already. The financial review, because what if they don't have their estate plan put together, what if their insurance skyrocketed and they need a recommendation to an insurance professional? What if they need to get life insurance because they're worried that if they pass away, they won't be able to pay off their mortgage? So annual financial reviews are more about giving referrals out to your partners than generating it for yourself. But make no mistakes, they'll tell you, hey, we're thinking about buying a lake property in two years. Great. Oh, by the way, if you're running to anybody else looking to buy salary finance, I'd love to be able to count on you to pass my name along. Again, another unfair question, but can you speak to, because you seem to be very consistent with your calls to your past client database, can you speak to a business that you're able to, right, generate from that? Just back because you're doing the calls. Yes, because I've got a system that I've worked for a long time with it. A lot of times, they call me before I can call them. So a lot of times I'm interacting with them because they've reached out to me. So the top of mind with them, so that's why they're thinking of you. Correct. If you're in the average L.O., who doesn't send a newsletter or email, who doesn't do the post-close follow-up system that you do, who doesn't go to social engage, like that's why you see the stat of 25% or whoever reuse the same L.O., well, that's why, right? But you're already top of mind. That's right. And so it really helps. So literally, I've had years where I've had 80% of my closings come from past clients. I'm down to 15 because my coach is nudging me to get closer to a 50-50 balance with agents and past clients. But the past clients already no light can trust you. Just call them. You can do the letter of the alphabet sequence where you call one letter of the alphabet a week. I struggle with that just to be candid. I'm very pleased with myself that I'm able to do the birthday calls because each week is 50 plus calls. It's going to have so many past clients. So many are there. By the way, if I can ask you're roughly, I'm getting close to 3,000 total clients that I've closed. So it is a lot. So if it's roughly 50-ish a week, you know, 2,500 in my database. Do you have a, well, before I go there, do you send them a newsletter of any kind? So they get, it depends how they're leveled in my database. So they're right. So everyone gets the electronic communication. So that's going to be, I like famous quotes. So I actually will even do quote reaction videos for some of my reels. Like one of my favorite ones was Rome wasn't built in a day. Well, all of us have heard that. But what most people don't know is the second part of that phrase is, but they laid bricks every day. Yeah. So I had a video where I just said the quote and then talked about what it meant to me. And so I do probably two of those a month for my social. So the emails that I send out each month are our famous quotes. So then I turn those email. That's just an image. Proder is it a text? No, it's an image. I had one guy reach out last week because the one that he got, he's like, you don't know this about me, but my parents actually named me after that person. Wow, really? Like, wow, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing. So they get that. I'll do weird holidays like National Avocado Day. I got this one right here. So I keep it handy. So just National Avocado Day. I'll do for for the holidays. I'll do a little holiday ornament. Okay. They're they're handmade by a former coworker of mine. She is her side business. So you send out three thousand of those? Well, only for people that close this ring. That's right. Everyone that closed this calendar year gets one of these. Do the Thanksgiving cards to everybody? No, I don't I don't do Thanksgiving. I do random holidays and I do the holiday card. It's like Groundhog Day, like stuff like that. So, but not everyone gets a physical printed card. Because it is a lot of money for people that might not be ranked in A. So how do you rank them in A? What's the criteria? So if they're a repeat client, absolutely, they're in A. If they've given me a referral, they're in A. If they're a veteran, because I specialize in helping veterans, you know, my wife is right over my shoulder. Yes, sir. So about two. Yeah, exactly. They they're in A. If they're a high net worth individual or their job is a connector. They're like an HR director or I know it sounds weird, but like hairstylist, because they talk to everybody. Personal trainers can be great, great referral sources. Yeah, stuff like that. So, let me ask you the opposite of that. That's not to interrupt you, but what makes somebody a C? Difficult. They didn't they didn't follow my process. Ungrateful argumentative. So they don't get gagged. They get them they get everyone gets something unless they're truly on do not contact and they get the they get the fruitcake, right? If you make a big enough omelet, you're going to crack some eggs. So so there are people that are on the do not contact again under any circumstances. Wow. And are there any realtors on that list too? Not really. No, not really. I have a high-eyed dis profile. So I get along with a lot of people. So you have to really do something bad to have me not want to engage with you anymore. Okay, so now I'm going to bounce around a little bit. Roughly how many realtors do you work with and do you have a ranking for them also? Yes. Yes, I do. So I keep three main lists. I keep a focus 40 which they've referred me and we've closed a deal together in the last 90 days. So the name of the list is focus 40. I don't have 40 agents on that list because if you're doing the math there, that's four closings per year per person on that list. That'd be 160 closings from that list alone. So I've got usually single digit agents on that list. Maybe low, low double digits at any given time. So they've referred me in the last 90 days and we've closed a transaction together. Then I have the next 40 which is they've referred me but we haven't closed in the last 90 days. So maybe we closed it in the past but it just hasn't been in the last 90 days. So they're on that list. I think I had 37 people on that list. The last time I compiled this and then I have the last 40 which is just like everyone I'm chasing. So there's like 130 something names on that list. How do you identify who you're you know quote chasing? Do you do any production criteria on that or you try to you try to have it be people that are qualified but if you if you follow the sequence there you know they ideally stay in the focus 40 then they can drop to the next 40 but if they haven't referred me in the last 90 days that's when they drop to that larger list. So that list is largely comprised of agents that I've received referrals from in the past that I'm hoping to nurture to get them back up the food chain the other way. So they went dark or really silent or something or the business is just down. So you know your agents that were used to doing you know 10 buy sides a year and now they're doing two or three right now it's just different. And do you have any specific strategies around identifying specific agents like I know in my area back in the day right Orange County I used to look at like you know who the top producers are right because they're out there everywhere you see them and so you identify like who do I want to go oh there's this girl in the magazine to use a freaking rock star right and all that kind of do you do any of that kind of stuff in terms of like you know laser targeting or anything like that or you should it's the top of your agent funnel the classes. Yes they'll be some of that sniper rifle stuff but the reality is the the top top people have their relationships. So a lot of that is shifting right now because of the turmoil. So for everyone listening and watching you know don't think that just because they say they have a preferred lender that that relationships dialed in. And don't let them tell you oh I know so and so well that's great that you know him that's not like you're in a friendship with him not a relationship with him. So don't be in the friends on a lily told an agent a real to this sorry a loan officer this morning that I'm that I'm coaching now they're asking how to how to end the meeting I was like well you're gonna have to be direct sometimes so like you need to essentially the business equivalent of lean in for a kiss right and ask for their ask for the business and if they reject you they reject you but at least you know where you're staying you don't want to be in the friend zone where always a great meeting and blah blah blah so ask for a tie down if you don't get it that's okay but if they do now stay in touch what's your system to follow up afterwards to ensure that that relationship blossoms and bears fruit as opposed to just withers on the vine because Jeff you know loan officers meet with agents day in and day out and then they get happy years got them and then they don't follow up at all right and then they wonder why they didn't get referrals yeah I think I've been guilty of that too especially in the early days totally totally like we've all been there don't even think that we haven't every single person's been there but the more systematic you can be the less likely than it has to happen well let's say you're meeting with an agent let's you know let's say they came however they got in front of you right but there's some perceived respect already but you haven't transacted yet but there is you have the meeting you have a good good conversation about you know first of its rapport and all that kind of stuff I'm assuming you're probably I might be wrong maybe let's go there briefly for a minute keep an eye on the clock but what is your briefly your you met an agent by way of whatever means class or whatever you're in front of them one-on-one via zoomer in person how do you move them or attempt to move them forward so towards the end it's and again naturalize it I've really enjoyed our time together Jeff I think we really hit it off would you have any reservations about sending me your next buyer client so we can see if this goes anywhere together that's the tie down that's me leaning in for a kiss and you're either going to accept it or reject it right and we'll see where it goes because they could say no I I'm you know I'm committed or whatever excuse and now you know where you're staying but what you don't want to do is you want to don't want to leave that meeting and and not and think you're in a relationship you've just been friends on it and you don't even know it hmm so you've got to ask essentially the tie down question to find out where you stand and I will tell you for a high-eye dis profile that is harder for me to do than someone that's got a high D because they'll just come right and say it yeah so it you just have to overcome your ask reluctance so to I think to to David says he likes big ask yeah big ask big ask that's true and reminds me Jeremy for say as well I think he says or would you be open to sending me your next two buyers oh yeah you may know his response when they're like well why too he's like well because anybody can get lucky once right but I really want a chance to opportunity to really demonstrate my right process for you and all that kind of just pretty smart I love Jeremy and he's right too because if you ask for one they're going to give you like the 500 credit score your professional turd polisher at that point so it is it's easier if it's a cleaner file so that's last week again I had a meeting with an agent it was a Google referral that the client found me and so I had never met the agent before we wowed the agent he referred me to other people during the contract because in my area yeah so two CCRs during the during the contract the both of them were new construction I run into that a lot in the Dallas-Fort Worth area yeah so I've got a whole process built around trying to beat the builders lender and I took a look at it one I ended up beating the builder down by a half a percent and saved the veteran $5,500 and and so but he ended up staying with the builder because we were a little neck and neck and he was you know less than three weeks from closing but he gave me a review I didn't even get his loan but I got a review he raved about me to his agent and his agent said he'd never had a client rave about a lender before much less one they didn't use and then he promised me his interest rate reduction refinance when rates cooperate wow so then the other guy the builder was giving them such a good deal I couldn't touch it and I told him this much yeah so he wanted to meet he had a problem with the file over the weekend with another client high net worth individual and again mortgage broker had a product that was non-QM that fit his needs and we locked him in yesterday all of that from Google because it wouldn't happen without the the Google tie down another compelling reason why to build up your Google presence exactly it's watching you know it's the long game and they are watching just because they don't comment or engage they are watching over and over and over again 100 percent well look at man we this this hour burned by really really fast we could probably go another hour so I'm probably going to have you back in the near future but for those who want to connect with you what would be the best place to direct the eyeballs so my Instagram handle I put a lot of effort into that at winning with Wade and my website is winningwithway.com so hit me up you can find me don't be a secret agent so if someone's trying to go with you make sure they can reach you okay yeah absolutely thank you so much Wade for making time for your busy schedule man I learned a lot and so once again appreciate your being here you're welcome thanks for having me all right listeners you know what to do if you like this episode and I'm confident you did please leave us a review or share this with somebody else do them the favor of helping educate them as well and we'll see 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 attracting 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 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