Ep #102: Getting More Agent Referrals by Going Deep vs Wide with Agents

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimper of your humble host, thanks again for tuning into this episode of mortgage marketing radio, depending upon when you're hearing this, hopefully you're doing one of two things. Closing out the year strong or hitting the ground running as you enter the new year with the wind at your back with your business plan in place. By the way, speaking of a business plan, most agents are in the same boat you are at this time of year. They're looking at planning their business for the new year. And guess what they oftentimes need and they're open to and that's help. Help in terms of getting clear on their goals, getting clear on their why, getting clear on the how, right, because a business plan can be complex or can be simple. I believe it should be simple and it should be a living breathing document that change and tivots when necessary with the market, for example. And so one of the things we offer you, our loyal listeners, if you choose to become a pro member of mortgage marketing institute, is we offer you a growing library of turnkey, instant download, lunch and learn, kick ass agent classes, that'll be my new tagline, kick ass agent class. What do you think? But speaking of a business planning, one of the new classes we just added in there is business planning, right, planning your best year ever, right? How do you get clear on what you want and how to get it? And that's as simple as it needs to be as number one, decide what you want, right? Number two, decide why and then number three, decide how, because you may have heard it said that if your why is big enough, you'll figure out the how. And so this business plan template is designed to add tons of value to real estate agents through teaching this class. By the way, I just got off a different podcast recording where this loan officer talked about business planning. It's been a fact it's the session I'm introducing right now. And so that's what made me remember to tell you guys about this class and the other classes that are in the library over at the mortgage marketing, not pro membership. So not only that, do you get all the power points, the templates, the video tutorial that done for you, flyer, how to use Eventbrite to schedule your events and automate the follow-up. Not only do we give you all that awesome content and teach you how to get butts in the seats and loans in your pipelines, we have an entire system in there for you every single month, a brand new class, but also we've got other things in there that are useful for you as you're looking at your business for 2019, right? Which is how to get better at your sales conversions, what are your scripts, what are your talk tracks, how to build your online brand and succeed on social media with Facebook and ads and videos and so forth. All that's in there for you if you want to become a mortgage marketing pro member, obviously where do you check it out, links in the show notes, but go to mortgagemarketing.row for more. All right, so with that said, speaking of that, my special guest is Debbie C. Cord and along with her is her business development person that she recently brought on the last year. Katie Shive. Katie shout out to you for connecting me to Debbie, Katie's been a long time listener, first time interviewee on the podcast, couldn't have done it without you, Katie, so thanks a lot for you and what you do. And of course, thank you to Debbie for sharing your wisdom, 20 years in the business. She's up in Reno, Nevada, just up north from me, just a short six hour drive, but a shorter 45 minute flight. So given the option, I think I'll be flying up to CU Debbie and take it out for a coffee or whatever. But anyway, so Debbie, 20 years in the business, guild mortgage, rock star consistently does about 64, 65 million a year, 260 families, she helps every year, folks, that's a lot of loans. All right, and we're going to unpack lots of different things on this episode, which is her realtor strategy, going deep versus wide, which one is better, what's different you choose. We're going to talk about events again, you know, it's funny. In the interviews that I've been doing, especially lately, a lot of these veteran originators, so depending on your tenure in this career, whether you're here, three years, five years, 20 years, a lot of us who've been around in this industry, like me since 2003, we've seen some of these strategies that have been out there for quite a long time, events, pop buys, right, things like that. And I just love it when I hear, again, the same message from another top producer, 260 loans closed in a year. How would you like to do that if you're not already doing it? Okay. Success leaves clues, folks. It is episode WC cord, Katie Shive, they're talking about how they leverage events, how they're leveraging video. One of the reasons Debbie brought Katie on is to help Debbie become a modern originator and start to implement video and hold her accountable on that. So it's a great dynamic between the two of them about how she makes that happen. And then we're going to talk about how she deals with TBDs, something she calls her Thursday, hot shoppers, a book study, masterminds that she does with real estate agents. Literally this is just a crash course in how to build a sustainable, reliable, purchase referral business, yet how to also diversify and get online and make that happen for you as well, even if you're an old dog. All right. So once again, thank you for being here. If you like this podcast or like the show, hey, let us know. Leave us a review, some comments, wherever you're listening to this, iTunes, Stitcher, go over to our Facebook page. And by the way, if you haven't yet joined the private group on Facebook, just go to Facebook and type in mortgage marketing radio, boom, you'll be taken to our group. Just ask for entry, permission, love to have you join that growing community where we share additional content and resources and training for you guys. And that said, let's get into this week's show. Debbie Katie, welcome to the show. Thank you, Jack. Hi, thank you. All right. So I've done these sessions before on the podcast where we've got two people calling in. So it makes sense to first let's identify who's who, so people can associate the person with the voice. Debbie, why don't you go first, tell us who you are, what you do. You're up. Okay. My name is Debbie. Say, Cord. And I've been in lending a loan officer about 20 plus years, so let you know how old I might be. And I just love what we do here. So when I'm with Guildmorgge. Awesome. Katie. Perfect. My name is Katie Shive, and I work on WC Quartz team. My focus is business development and marketing. So that looks like making sure our events, business partners and clients that are really loved on and happy and well communicated to you. All right. How long have you guys been working together? A little over a year. I've been on Debbie's team since last fall, so just a little over a year, actually. And it was truly one of my best hires. I mean, she has our master's degree in marketing, and she's bringing us into the new modern millennial. And it's such a huge benefit to our team. All right. So we're going to talk about that in a second. Debbie, I want to set up for those listeners that people are naturally curious all the time. Give us like a 2017 roughly volume units. We're pretty much somewhere in the market of 64 to 69 million a year. And that's been pretty consistent for the past four years. And we're probably a good mix of conventional FHA and builder business. And that's around 260 to 270 units per year. Wow. A lot of loans. And you are in, of course, Reno, Nevada, just north of me a little bit here. Yes. Michael, just talk about Reno all day, actually. I dig in. I love it. But that's not why we're here. Let's talk business. OK, so you mentioned for a second, Katie, she was the best hire you ever made. And she's bringing you into, helping to bring you into the quote, I'll use the word. You use this millennial market, right? Or whatever. I assume by you, you brought Katie on. Let me not assume. Why did you bring Katie on, unpacked that a little bit? Well, because here at Guild, our culture and a lot of the goals for the last couple of years have been for high touch, high tech. And as we change, high tech is a lot easier for true marketer and somebody who's a millennial herself, maybe the beginning stages of it. And I think it's very important as a loan officer to continue to change with your market so that your clients get the best of both worlds. And what are you hoping are the changes that Katie will help you implement? Well, she's definitely given us a presence on the internet and all the different sources that a lot of people today, it's changing, it's no longer they're finding you through their real estate agent and the referring partner, they're doing their own research and they're on the internet and they're on all the different sites that we're all familiar with. And so you have to have a presence there to capture that. And did you feel that prior to bringing Katie on, you were lacking, maybe were you unsure you were going to be able to do it successfully yourself? Absolutely. All right, Katie, you up for the task? I am, yes, I always really, really good challenge. You're not saying Debbie's a challenge, are you? No. Yes, I am. Go ahead, Katie. I am. She's not a challenge, but I think what I see highlighted our market is changing and just how we talk to our clients and our business partners is constantly changing. So part of my challenge and my job is really to figure out the best way to meet our clients and business partners where they're at. What Katie, I want to ask you, when you were evaluating looking at areas of opportunity for Debbie, let's call it that, right, for her online presence or branding, et cetera, what kind of stood out for you initially as like glaringly obvious that was needed to be worked on? Let me think one of the things that we really focus on is just being consistent on our branding across the board, so making sure that all of our messaging is consistent. We focus heavily on LinkedIn and Facebook, so making sure our posts are consistent. We really try to do posts at least five days a week, but not just a spray and price. We're going to post out there and hoping that somebody can respond, but also building engagement. Working on getting our clients and business partners to comment, to share, and really trying to create a dialogue and build community through social media. And so how have you done that in your time you've been there about a year or so when you say drive engagement, community getting partners and comments and all that stuff, how do you do that? What types of content are you creating and posting? So some of the things we've done is creating events, so we do a couple events, big events each year, so we do one in the fall, which we recently did. We run it out of pumpkin patch farm, so to speak, and we had about 300 clients show up, which was really successful in our mind. And so we really pushed that on social media. One of the things we did partner with an agent in town. So we had a lot of fun with it. We got an inflatable dinosaur costume and ran around the corn patch and made some goofy videos and created an event on Facebook for that. And then just really played that up as much as we could. So you ran it out of pumpkin patch. I love that idea. How did you do that? Was that like during off hours or whatnot? So we did on a Thursday, so it wasn't peak weekend hours for them. And we did have to pay for the whole rental fee, so we had basically a private event. But there's each family or each child left with a pumpkin. There was a pumpkin patch, a petting zoo. We had two face painters come. They had all kinds of different rides and whatnot. And then on the most inside, we created some, you know, cards that each family left with. And so it was like a postcard. And then we created a scavenger hunt. So the kids had to go around the farm and find different farm animals and bring that back to us. And they got a treat bag. And then on the back of the card, it just said, you know, thank you so much for your business. We really appreciate you. Love that. We have 100 people. That's huge. We actually have 301. Our max is 300 and they graciously left the one extra person. So, C Jeff, for us, this is Debbie. We've done that event. This was our third straight year. But typically for me, just high touch, I would get out as much as I could. But we've never had the success rate that we had this year to thank our clients, our past clients for staying with us. We've never had that kind of success without Katie's marketing. So that's where the big difference came. More people could, were reached and could take advantage of such a great event. Yeah. Yeah. Well, seriously, that's amazing. I mean, imagine the ripple effect from that 300 people. And that was a mix of past clients and some agents. Is that correct? Yep. I mean, there was primarily our past clients. That's what we marketed too. And that's an occurrence as a thank you. And our marketing leading up to that. So we did do some print. We didn't do a mailer. So we mailed out personal invitations to every family. And then we followed up with an email campaign as well and then added social media into it. But you didn't call people. You relied on the outbound stuff. We did rely on the outbound stuff. And then we did make some phone calls. It's a lot on the last day, just as a reminder. And I'm asking that. Hopefully, you know, it's coming across the right way. And that really speaks to a couple of things, right? I mean, one, your marketing, the pieces must have been really good and compelling, the social media itself. And then just I think the connection or affinity you've got with those clients to get that level of people to participate. That really says a lot about, I think you, Debbie. No, thank you. And that's truly where with my 20 years, that's what I take the most pride in. But like we said in this new marketing and guild idea is high touch, high tech. And great at the high touch. That's always been what sustained me. The high tech has been a challenge. Awesome. So I want to all stay on this thread for a moment of events. It's funny because a podcast I recorded just before this one, same theme, right? Another top producer, big on events. What are you guys looking at for other events as we enter in more holidays, right? We got Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up, anything around those. Yeah, so we do happy hours as well. Those are targeted a lot to our business partners and our agents. So we really try to love on them. We've gone back and forth with, you know, in the past, we used to do one every single month. But everybody knows agents are super busy. And sometimes it felt like our attendance started to dwindle because they knew, oh, if I missed this month, I can come to the next one. So we have since shifted that model a little bit. And now we typically do one a quarter. And that has a much better turn on. I think our last happy hour, we had a little over 20 agents show up to that. So we work with a local kind of bar and restaurant in town, which is great to support local. They love having us. And then they donate a raffle. So every time we go, they donate like a wine basket. And we get, you know, we collect business cards when they come. So that way, we know who is attending. And then this is a way to thank them for coming. We also have the business donates at wine basket. I know you're doing anything where it's like the people who come, they get a free drink ticket or they all on their own for that. It depends on the event. So we definitely will host food. And then, you know, drinks can be on them. It just kind of depends. We, you know, none of us are really heavy drinkers. So we do more heavy apps and a lot of food. So we'll put a big spread out in the middle of the table and make sure they leave with full bellies. That's awesome. So clearly, events are a key part of you staying top of mind with real estate agents, right? And clients. Yeah. So in addition to events, we also do pop buys, which is another thing that we target. So I look at a calendar. I usually try to do this six months in advance. And I'll look at, you know, major holidays. Or I like, we did a pop buy in August. It was national. More say and he doesn't look at more. So I put together this really cute, small packet and delivered about 50 to different agents. I mean, the cost for us is, you know, maybe $2 per little bundle. And then I designed a little tag that I printed in tied to each bundle. And then I went around to all of the different offices and then handed those out. So little pop buys like that as well are in addition to just kind of stay top of mind. Hmm. Okay. Um, events, pop buys, it's fundamentals. You know what I mean? It's one of those things that have been done for years. Some people don't well. Some people look at pop buys as I've said this just a moment ago. Uh, some people call pop buys cheesy. You know, we love cheese. Well, cheese winds up being green oftentimes, doesn't it? Yes, it does. The form of referrals. Yes. Why do you do? Yeah, here's the thing I want to answer for the listeners. Why do you do pop buys? What does it do for you? So I think first of all, it's all about your branding. And second of all, the pop I can serve as two separate things. It's like, wow, look, your lending team really still thinks of you, thinks of you a lot. You're on the forefront of their mind. Second of all, it's a little bit of breaking rice about what we've got today. Oh, I see, I mean, yeah, yeah, right, right. So it makes them feel special. Um, also, do you think it's helpful in today's world, an online noisy world to take some of the online offline? Absolutely. I would 100% agree. I mean, I think it's one of my challenges of finding that balance, right? I could do everything digital and just not get out of from behind my desk. Or I could be totally, you know, we could be out in front of agents all the time. But it's that balance of having a social media presence, email campaigns, whatnot, but, you know, also making sure Debbie and I are getting out in front of our agents and face to face. I mean, you just can never replace that face to face interaction. I think that people make a big mistake if they think that the high touch is not still part of our current climate and our future climate. It is still going to matter. Absolutely. I agree 100%. Okay, so that's great. Events, Popeyes, I love it. By the way, guys, for those that are looking, you know, Katie, you said you planned this, the events or Popeyes out. I think it was Popeyes specifically. You planned those out up to six months in advance, did you say? Yeah, so I look at the calendar and I just try to figure out. Okay, you know, what are we doing? You know, obviously we're not doing a Popeye every single month, but I try to kind of alternate. So maybe it's a Popeye one month, a happy hour, the next. You know, and so I kind of look six months out and we'll figure out like what the the Schmors one, for example, it's like, oh, it's August. We're not having a happy hour this month. Oh, it's National Schmors Day, the end of the campaign. So it's kind of the thought logic behind. Let's do a Popeye and get in there and, you know, W and I just loaded up our car and went around for the afternoon and delivered them. So yeah, I try to look six months out. Yeah, I think that's smart. You got a plan, right? Because it's like all of a sudden Tuesday and you're like, oh, Thursday's like, you know, the day, where am I going to too late then? Right. I want to share a resource with people that are listening. You probably have your own. I mean, there's a bunch of them. You can find online, Google, like National holidays. And these aren't the usual like Veterans Day holidays. You can find works. Yeah, like this one I'm looking at right now is National Day Calendar. Hey, heads up people. I don't know if you knew it, but yesterday, November 6 was National Nachos Day. So we missed that one. Yeah, that's literally the calendar that I use. And it's fun because you can find some really off-the-cuffs topics that are great conversation starters. You know, the National Red Hat Day, there's all kinds of things you can get really playful with. That's what's awesome is it's fun. It's different. You stand out. It's not the usual rates today or trending at five, you know? Right. Who wants to hear that? By the way, here's a gift to you guys. November 14th. Do we have time? Yeah, it's National Pickle Day. So perfect. You can get pickle chips, pickle cakes. You could have a... So there goes Katie already. You could say don't find yourself in a pickle. Choose our team. Yes! There you go. How quick was that? Love it. Love it. So people listening, check out those calendars. Lots of cool fun ideas. I mean, you can even just do videos around it. If you're not the pop-by person, you know, and do a video, have fun with it. All right. So speaking of videos, let's transition to a little bit of online stuff. I'm poking around here. I'm trying to find out more of what you guys are doing digitally. So I'm on your Facebook page. Tell me about videos that you're doing. What's the strategy around that? What I'll preface it before Katie takes over. She tries really, really hard on these videos. I am not the most willing participant, but I am learning. Yeah, so we, that's definitely a goal that we keep making for ourselves is to be more on the forefront doing video. Just because that is, you know, just so quick, easy way to get in front of your clients. You know, that's not just the boring content that you're reading. So we do a lot of video around events. If we have events leading up to it. And then we will do video emailing. Like we have subscribed through bomb bomb. So we will email, you know, our database for veterans, say, for all of our veterans or for Christmas and different things like that. So we do a lot of videos through email marketing as well. It's not always on our Facebook page. And you've got the video that are they broken out into different groups, realtors, clients? And we haven't done that as much. We do have a Facebook group that we have, we've had an issue, I shouldn't say we've had an issue. We want to do something like a Facebook group, but our compliance is looking into it. So we haven't launched that yet. But I know that some people do, you know, segment out their markets by groups doing it that way. So right now, our strategy is just our Facebook page is to everybody. So I try not to talk just rates or just, you know, inspiring things that we try to have that make. So we know we're talking both to our business partners and our clients. I think too, Jeff, you're probably talking about some canned videos, right? So probably for 2019, that might be our growth where you've got your standard. Congratulations. Just gone out your home got accepted that you could send out generically once you produce one. You know, trying to send out a video. This is goals for 2019 trying to set up. When you know that somebody's making an offer today, trying to set them apart by sending the listing agent a video about you're the one with the free call and how strong they are and how much they love the house. Trying to look more at those really specifically dedicated things that would help your client achieve the dream of home ship and get their offer accepted. And your agent. Yeah, so it sounds like what you're trying to do there is integrate video into some of the milestones and touch points during that transaction. Yeah, yeah, makes a lot of sense to do that. And of course, it takes a little bit of work up front to kind of build that all out, but once it's done, it's done and it works. Yes, and that's where Katie's so great is that it's consistent because I feel like in this market, if you do something once or twice, it doesn't do you much good if you're not consistent. So when you click on the on the things that are going to grow your business that are important to you, you have to be consistent. And that's where Katie's helped us to have a plan and be more consistent. That's why I believe the business itself is more consistent. So, so Debbie, then it sounds like Katie had to encourage you, could Joel, you kick you to get started with video? Yes, that is true. So how do you feel now? Are you feeling more comfortable? I am. I am. I prefer a goofier video over anything polished or professional. So many times, Katie won't even show me when we get done with a little clip video. It's just you just post and I trust her because it's always been exactly what we wanted and it net our goals. But if I have to rewatch it, I don't think they would get posted. And I will say to every video that we've done, I wish she, she definitely, once we do videos, they get easier. I think you get more comfortable with what you're doing and she does a great job with that. It's just, yeah, being consistent, I think is really what's key. And truly being yourself. If I try to be somebody super polished or try to not be myself, that's when the videos are not fun. Key point right there. Be yourself. Don't, yeah, don't try and look Hollywood. That's not that's not someone else's. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Katie, I'd like to maybe get your input briefly on too many people get caught up in the metrics of video. And I'm not saying it's not relevant or important, like views and all that kind of stuff. It is. But this, I guess, is around the point of consistency because what would you say to those people who we know they're out there that we know they're listening right now, and that's you I'm talking about. We're all, yeah, I did three videos and it didn't work for me. Or I didn't get, you know, I only got 12 views. How do you coach that person on why to hang in there? I think, you know, just going back to the consistency part is you're building an audience. You know, you throw three videos out there and you just stop all of a sudden. I mean, you just never know who's watching. You never know. Even if you have one person watching, that could translate to, you know, a referral or refinance or a purchase down the road. But if you give up too soon, you don't know what audience you're building. You don't know who's following you. So, you know, our approach isn't to do it for the metrics, although we do look at that and that is important. But really, our long-term strategy is we're trying to build an audience, we're trying to build our community. So whether we have one person watch it or, you know, 1200 to us, it's just important to be consistent and to let people know. I mean, if they're going to follow our page and then we just drop off, you know, why are they going to continue following us? So kind of trickling that through. I think a lot of people have the ambition to do, you know, video and like with any goal going to the gym or whatever. I mean, you start out that, you know, January 1, Gung Ho and then come February, it kind of tapers. And so if you can find a realistic schedule that works for you, I mean, maybe that's just one video a month. But practice finding that medium, be consistent and then build upon that rather than trying to, you know, do a video every day and burning out. Right on, right on. Okay, cool. I'm going to transition to back to UW for a second, looking at my notes from our initial conversation. You mentioned something if I'm correct that you're doing differently, maybe, or changing up how your realtor strategy and that is you're going, is it going deep versus wide? Did I get that right? Yeah, and it's not a change for me. So in my 20 years, it's pretty much been, that's where I'm super comfortable is really strong relationships where your goals are their goals and everybody wins. And I'm not great at going wide, which Katie has helped us add a lot of different people or business partners through these other avenues that have not always been. So we are going a little wider than what I'm used to. And I just want to make sure the service doesn't change. That's always been the reason that kept me from doing that. I see. So that actually is, I correct myself. It is you're going wide versus deep because you've been used to and very good at going deep, but Katie's brought some capabilities for you to scale your reach. That what I'm hearing. That is correct. That is correct. And then what you do is you identify those folks that might be right for then moving forward or moving further down the funnel, whatever and going deeper with those few, right? Yeah. And I think, I think as long as I definitely am just speaking for myself, I feel like when you are aligned with the same goals in business period, it is so much funner and such a better transaction for everybody involved. So that does mean at times I have tired agents. If we don't work together on either side, it's not a win for everybody. So that's really important to me. Do you ever put up with that crazy realtor just to keep getting the business? I think that comes with age, right? So in my early years, I'd put up with everything. I do feel like in the last 10 years, no, I won't because at the end of the day, if that's a huge challenge for me, then their client is filling the same and it's not where I want to be and it's not really a transaction that ends up the way we want it to. So it doesn't mean I don't try super hard. It doesn't mean that I'm willing to throw out a business partner or a lead. It means that it just has to be a great fit for everybody. And at sometimes I've had to change. Sometimes I've had to change to realize, oh, look, they have a value here and their point is something that we can. Now I get it. I get one of this way and I get why it's a good business relationship. So sometimes we change too. But no, I no longer will do a deal with a nightmare just to do a deal. Just don't do it. Don't have to. Well, and you also have to think about the cost to you and your business of that. Like you mentioned, the clients are impacted by that. But then also, you know, I mean, there's the impact of you emotionally and what a time suck that becomes and how that takes you off track. So it's easy. I know, like you said early on, it's harder to say that because you need business or you'll do anything. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's transition a little bit. I'm looking at my notes and I want to kind of do a couple rapid fire topics and see where this leads us. I wrote down Thursday hot shoppers. What's that? So every time we get a lead pre-qualified that actually could go out today. So no credit fixes. They are ready to go. They have their down payment. They're hot shopping. Every Thursday, my team follows up with that hot shopper. We call to see how it's going, how they're agent doing. Are they seeing some properties so that we can revalidate their agent at that point. But bigger, bigger thing is sometimes we find out that they're not happy with the agent that they are happy with us keeping in touch. So it becomes super important on both sides. Interesting. So when you find out they're not happy with the agent, how do you handle that? I really do dig into that. I want to know why I try to validate, not if it's not true, but if it's true, I try to validate that that's not really what I'm used to from that agent and have they talk to the agent. I try to get them to go back to the agent because the agent can't do better for them if they don't know how they're missing the mark on what they're getting, you know, what the buyer wants to see. And many times we end up turning that around. People are not comfortable with confrontation. So in that conversation, they realize, yeah, it is not fair to this agent that I haven't told them that he's showing me properties and he's missed the mark on what I want to see. So many times we keep those relationships together by having those conversations. Yeah, I love the fact that you said with your Thursday hot shoppers, there's multiple initiatives behind that. One is obviously to touch base and stay connected and you're building a fence around that client ideally because we know they could be double-apping whatever. How do you handle then? I'm curious what percentage you know, Remark is different, but I know I often talk to loan officers and they've got the TBDs and I don't know what your market like, meaning there's a lot of TBDs there to just maybe in pause mode and you just still apply the same Thursday strategy. Yeah, until we know they're no longer in the market for whatever reason we do, that's just part of one of my upfront teamH jobs every Thursday. Well, I love that because now that I think about this, you know, there's a number of L.O.'s I've spoken to where your frequency is probably the most regular or consistent one I've heard because I think too many L.O.'s let it go too long, like a TBD, right? They'll let that thing kind of fizzle out. Yeah, and when you're having those regular conversations, you know if that's still an active shopper, they'll tell you. And then I think that really does go back to my preference of going deep because I'm taking care of those people and we're really, really coddling those relationships we started rather than to keep looking for more and more and more and more so you don't get the high touch. And when you recognize that somebody is taking a pause or they're not active in market or whatever, you know, they communicate that to you or through questioning, do you then move them to some type of a, you know, email drop campaign or something or other different type of schedule? That's exactly what we do. So it might become a, they just said that they've had a relationship change or a financial change and it's going to be six months before they have that money saved back up. Then we might touch them every other month saying, hey, how's it going? Do you have any questions? Whatever their reason was, we talked specific about the reason, let's say, how's the savings going? Do you want to touch base and pick on track? But that might become every other month. If somebody truly says they're out for a year for whatever reason, then that might only be once a quarter. If somebody is working on credit, we're probably checking in once a quarter to see what that gauge looks like. I mean, we just got somebody back to an agent that they worked on their credit for three years. Doesn't happen a ton, but when it does, it's so rewarding. And we were able to get them back to the exact same agent because every conversation, we talked about their business partner and their goals. And when we called the agent to say, hey, Mr. Smith is ready to go. They were just thrilled. And with those, the TBDs, the Thursday hot shoppers where you're trying to, you know, keep people active in market, what's their status, et cetera. Are you also then updating agents on those conversations if there's something meaningful, I guess? Yeah, if it doesn't reach any confidence, it's definitely something we're talking about. Okay. And it's interesting. I'm thinking about this through the lens of, well, I think one of the value props for a loan officer, we already talked about one, which is I edify that real estate agent and help build them up. Do you intentionally articulate that as part of your value proposition for real estate agents is, you know, not only is it my goal to obviously prequel, pre-approved all that stuff, but also to ensure that I drive as many leads or clients, you know, back to you. Does that make sense? It's definitely probably one of my number one talking points about how the partnership works. Because the 1-800 lender is not going to care about the agent and our market and for that relationship else. And do you find agents respond to that positively? Yes, I do. It's so, so funny is, well, we both, I'm just like thinking it's crazy. We've been around in this industry a long time, it's me since 2003. And that's one of those classic fundamentals of, like you constantly hear about realtors don't value loan officers or they're not loyal. And in my response to that is exactly what you and I just talked about. Well, probably because you're not doing a good job demonstrating your visible value because it sounds like you are on the same page, Debbie, where it's yes, your job is to do an awesome job as a loan officer or all that kind of stuff. But you are, this is where I think you're point about going deep, you're an extension of that team, right? Absolutely. Yep. Yeah. And I know that was that was pitched a lot more back in the day, air quotes, if you will, where it was, you know, where I got my training from, where it's like, you would call and introduce yourself, you know, hi, this is Debby Seekord. I'm part of the, you know, ABC team at remax. And, you know, first of all, just congratulations on your choice to use the ABC team at remax. They're one of the best, you know, that kind of stuff, right? Right. Yeah, I don't think that happens a lot. I think what happens is, no, and I think that I do think that something that's missed. And I think that mass media and you can go wide and just hope that some stuff sticks, right? So for me, that's where the relationship's so important. And our industry is not easy. It's not easy for the agents. It's not easy for GoLender. So when you have somebody and you can have like this great happy ending experience that the homeowner gets the house of their dreams and everybody gets paid, it's just such a win-win. All right. Good stuff. Let me transition for a moment back to Tukati if she's the best one to answer for this. What, if anything, are you guys doing around paid traffic, paid advertising, Facebook ads, for example? You know, we don't do a whole lot of paid advertising. We've experimented with it a little bit through boosting posts or videos. If you have a new product that just rolled out, it's unique to, you know, to GoLender, our market, we'll boost that. But I honestly can't say that we should have seen a significant return from, you know, our paid traffic or paid advertising versus all of our organic stuff. So that's just not something that we focus on heavily on our team. Do you also have to jump through some compliance hoops if you're going to be running any ads? Yeah. I mean, anything that we do, you know, is always going through compliance and that's something that's so important to us. So, you know, occasionally we'll have things, you know, I'll come up with an idea and this would be great. And, you know, we'll send it to compliance and for whatever reason it may not, you know, be approved. And of course, we value that over anything else. So it really just depends. But fortunately, our compliance team works really hard to make sure that, you know, they're not just blocking everything. So rarely do they ever put the full brakes on. So they work really hard to get that together with us. So is your company producing any content for you that you then repurpose on social? They do. Yeah. So they have, you know, a lot of, you know, some of the generic stuff that, you know, tips for home buyers and, you know, different mortgage terms and specific to product announcements and things like that. So we definitely will use some of their creative products or create a content and we'll kind of drip that into our social strategy. But then we also really try to create a lot of our own stuff. So I would say maybe one day a week we'll use content that corporate produces for us and then everything else we try to produce, you know, for our team. Do you guys do anything around agents, content or listings or things like that that they may be, you know, posting to share that or? Yeah. So we will share if an agent has a new listing or something like that. I think that goes back to what Debby was talking about. We try to validate the agent. So if they have something that they post, we'll definitely share that. But we'll do, you know, we'll do co-branded flyers and share that as well. So anywhere that we can partner with our business agents, we love to get behind that. And that's where Guilds Platform is fabulous. There's all these flyers and products that you can use for helping your business partners. Get out there. What are some of the things you help them do in terms of marketing? So we do a lot of, you know, like you said, with the flyers, we'll do open houses with them. Just to clarify. So open house flyers, right? So we do open house flyers coming soon flyers. I know some loan officers have used products called list reports. That is a platform that's available. And then occasionally if they ask us to do an event, we'll consider that. Again, it's really, you know, we have some pretty creative agents. So some of them come up with some pretty cool stuff that they purchase with. Are you doing any open houses with them? Things like that? Yes, we do do open houses. And always the same thing. My main job in that open house is to edify, you know, if they have an agent, it's great. And if they don't, that there's one here that can help them with every need that they could have in a match and edify the person. And then, you know, we also have a fun thing like we have an open house survival kit from the dollar store. And it just has like that the agent gets and it just has their card, our card. And it has maybe a light bulb in it, a candle. If you go into a house, it's a little less desirable. Then we've all been in. Maybe some for breeze. Some lights. Some for a roll of toilet paper. You know, it's just another fun thing and it still adds value to that. And they they can actually carry those around in the future and refill them. Right. Right. That's awesome. I love it. Open house survival kits. Yeah. Again, making it fun, making it different. Okay. Last thing I'm looking at here for my notes is you mentioned earlier, you're coaching agents and I wrote down a book study. You're doing a book study with agents. Is that correct? Yeah, I do have some agents that we do a book study. We've done them after my in groups where we get together and they can be from all different offices. That's beautiful part about the happy hours and some of these other things is that the agents come from different offices and it's not a conflict. They learn. You learn more together. But the bigger focus we did in 2018 was my team picks a book and they read it throughout the month and if that's how we start our Monday morning meetings. What was highlighted, what they like, it gives me a chance to figure out where they're where they're really value bar and and to see everybody's strength and what's important to them. And we just like the last book we just finished with the secret. And it, you know, we do a vision board every year and we're teaming up with a real estate group issue and their agents are coming and we're we're getting together and we're doing vision boards together. It's lots of fun things. No, yeah, I love that. This is kind of a new idea for some people because I brought it up once before I think and it was like, you know, lights go on. Oh, great idea because a lot of people think agents are hyper competitive and they're not going to get in a room and share ideas, you know, about what's working. But to your point about your masterminds, you found that not to be the case. No, and actually I may have had the beliefs the other way prior to joining Guild were a highly coached company and these happy hours are what truly introduce me for the first time that these people do love interacting with each other. Sometimes deals are made at these happy hours. Sometimes ideas are given of how a deal can be made and it's different than what I've perceived before coming to Guild for sure. So real quick then a mastermind, the kind of the format for that is roughly what just gets that out if you could. That would be just talking about our market today, the hot topics within the market and it usually does revolve around the core coaching or whatever coaching, whatever coaching forms you use. So we just look at how do you track your leads? How did tracking your leads go? What does your greatness tracker look like or whatever forms? Like it's the accountability of the work that you've got then to achieve your goals because none of us have bosses. None of us have to show up. None of us punch a clock. These younger agents have not even had a chance to work in an environment that they have to show up at 8 and leave at 5 so they're kind of just out there with no real guidance. So these forms, the accountability, your greatness tracker, how many calls did you make? How many thank you cards did you send? What do you do for the end of the year? Reminders? What do you do for the quarterly reminders of your close clients? It's just really for me, it's mostly based around coaching, the core coaching that we use. Yeah, as a matter of fact, come to think of it, one of your colleagues, Olig to Koch, you know him? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Who doesn't know Olig, right? Exactly. Had him on the podcast and he said the exact same thing in terms of how he sees the role for loan officers, you know, he's changing, if you will, although you and I were like, hey, no, this has been the role since the beginning. But for those that aren't doing that, you need to become a coach for the agents. I think there's this perception that for those of us in the industry, we get exposed to all this stuff, the different real estate coaches out there and all that kind of jazz. And our assumption is, oh my god, the realtor is they've got plenty of info on how to do X, Y or Z. And reality is, yes, but no, because you know, most of them aren't like doing it yet. And they really need, here's what I've learned, they need a guide, they need your user term a coach, but to have somebody locally there face to face in person, that's a whole different thing than watching a video or whatever. Exactly. And it's an in-person accountability. Now, I love it. And by the way, to your point about, you know, the coaching content, right, you guys are part of the core and all that stuff, great organization. And so the whole point there is, look, just borrow the content that exists out there and put it together in a format that's right is easy for you to share and people to write, share and have a conversation. Your goal is really to facilitate her in those masterminds, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah, you're not like a teacher, you're not like, you know, big raw raw session, you're like, okay, so let's talk about this concept of like time blocking, you know, and you just roll it out there. And people just love the fact that somebody's pouring into them, I think I could go on about that all day. I love it. And we've actually had, you know, we've seen a lot of success through that, but again, that's just about my personal preference about willing to be. You could do big, huge lunch and learns with you invite everybody in the brother, which, which I've tried that and we've done it and some of them are a lot of fun. But I much prefer the more deeper relationships where we know what we can do for each other and how to best help each other and accountability. Yeah, I think the big takeaway from all this is specifically real estate agents is, you know, not to sound cliche, but it is a real estate relationship. And we need to be as loan officers, I just taken my personal experience and a lot of folks I talk, you just need to get better at developing relationships and realizing that from the get go, that it's not a vendor situation, your job is to not close alone. Even though it's like, you know, we've heard that before as a matter of fact, you know, give us back the oleg for a second. He's like, you know, three years ago, you know, maybe you could get by with, oh, I close loans on time, but so what today, everybody can do that. That's not your competitive advantage. So how do you, what is your competitive advantage? And I think it's, you know, again, to sound, I hate to beat these words to death, but it's the value you bring to the relationship. It's how are you pouring into that person? How are you helping to help them get, achieve their goals? You know, we've heard it for so long, but dog gone and it's true. Yeah, and I think I think in the 20 years that that concept comes and goes, right? Because it's the next shiny penny, the next great idea. But I think at the end of the day for me, it's always been the consistent relationship. Not about when I get paid, but how we all issue that in goal. Right, right. And then last, before we wrap up, Hey, Katie, what do you got on your radar for 2019 digital marketing wise or branding wise for a, for Debbie and team? I think really just kind of sound to more videos. That's really a goal that we've been discussing and pushing. And so really just being more consistent, getting in front of the camera. I think, you know, being more spontaneous and in really pushing videos is going to be our main goal for next year. More spontaneous videos. Does that mean like on the streets, right? Yeah, I mean out and about or maybe even doing more Facebook live events too. That's a huge thing. I know sometimes when you're live, the nerves come out a little bit different than if it's recorded and you can do 10 takes. So I think just being doing Facebook live events and, you know, more more videos is really where we're going to be focusing. Love it. Love it. Look at the key there, even with Facebook live or anything is likely. It just, just be you. It doesn't have to be perfect. Totally. It go live and go, you know. Yeah, we pulled out some props. And then we really try to have that balance of fun and cheese because that's what you're going to get when you work with our team. You're going to have a great time and you're going to be taken care of. But we definitely like to have fun and get things done. So that's how we try to come across in all of our communications. And that's a great reminder that people would rather be entertained than educated. But if you can combine the two, you got a winner. Yeah, yeah. Winning together. Exactly. Awesome. Well, let's guys appreciate you making time and you're incredibly busy. What's the best way? I'm going to put links in the show notes, of course, to W. Your Facebook page. The website as well. Give me that one more time. So those listening, they know where to go. So our website is guildmortgage.com for slash debris cord. Awesome. Well, thanks again for sharing. I really appreciate you both being here. I thought it was an awesome combination of powerful women dropping some truth bombs. Well, thank you for having us. And thank you, Jeff, for always trying to better our industry. It's fabulous. Thank you. Oh, you bet. No, thank you. It's a passion project. And that speaks to our listeners. Thank you. Of course, ultimately for tuning in and listening. And if you like the episode, hey, let us know. Give us a little shout out wherever you're listening to this little ranking star. You know how to do it. So it's my pleasure to host this. And as always, be good. Be safe. We'll see you out on the next one. And bye for now. Radio one more truth in mortgage marketing. Get more free training and resources at mortgage marketing institute dot com. 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 of 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. 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