Ep #103: How to Close 216 Units for $75Million Working Remotely and Meeting Agents Over Video

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. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. I'm brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimper, thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. I hope you're doing well. In the process of you giving gifts, maybe you ought to give yourself a gift as well this year. It may sound like a shameless plug if it does, I'm sorry, but it's really because I'm thinking of you and I want to give you a gift and that is an opportunity to make the new year perhaps your best year ever in the mortgage space or perhaps the year where you finally succeed and break through to a new level with real estate agents. Maybe it's the year where you finally get serious and get started with your online presence, your branding, your social media, your Facebook, your content, learning how to do that. You know, if that's the road you're on, you'd like to get some of that done for yourself in the new year. Hey, I do have a gift for you. It's called Mortgage Marketing.pro. Join us, join other loan officers there that are succeeding at a level they never have before with real estate agents. Join us and succeed with social media and online marketing. Pivot for the digital shift that's happening right now. You don't have a huge window to pivot and adjust or else you'll be left behind. So check out Mortgage Marketing.pro if that sounds of interest to you or you can always reach out to me directly with questions, hit me up on Facebook. Have you joined our Facebook podcast community page? If not, our group, go to Facebook and type in Mortgage Marketing Radio. Love to have you in that podcast group as well. So with that said, let's transition into my very special guest, lender to the stars, Christy Hardy. That's right. She has the URL, the lender to the stars. You know she's successful when you hear that. So who is she? What's she all about? She's with Atlantic Coast Mortgage and she has been in this business since 2004 and came out of the gate swinging from the get go. She's a rock star, superstar. She is a matter of fact for, let's see, 2013, 40, 50, 60, 60, six years in a row was voted best of Loudon for a local newspaper publication that ranks different professionals and one of those categories is mortgage professionals. She's won that consistently. If you guys want to vote for her after today's podcast, I think there's a link in the show notes. Hopefully. But, you know, what we do is, of course, we dive in like we always do, right? She did in 2017, 216 families. She helped for $75 million. Folks, that's top 1%. That's superstar. That is lender to the stars right there. And she brings some ideas to the table. Christy does that. I have not thought about and I was really impressed and pleased to have her on here talking about how she's now using Zoom to have a video conferences. And if you're watching the video portion of this on YouTube or on the blog, you can see I'm using Zoom. Hi, I use Zoom to record these podcasts, both video and audio. So she's using Zoom to check this out. You know how we all do the coffee meeting with realtors and stuff? Hey, how about you do a Zoom meeting with realtors? How about instead of jump through all the fences of driving and coffee and all that stuff and no shows, your schedule is Zoom meeting. And you have your first conversation on a Zoom meeting. Brilliant. A video conference, one on one, she says it's working great for her. It totally actually reduces the pressure around that and everything. So consider that. The second idea she had, I'd want to give her the whole farm away here, but it has to do with a similarly using Zoom in terms of client interactions, prospect of interactions and things like that. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about what she does for realtors, how she goes wide. She's got about 100 agents, I think, that she's in her sphere of influence and database. So we're going to unpack all that, how she's pivoting and starting to use social media more in her business and just a really great, awesome conversation with a really terrific woman in the industry and a powerhouse. Watch out. Don't get in her way. She's strong. So anyway, let's get into this week's show with my very special guest, links to her website and other things are going to be in the show notes. Please welcome my special guest to the show, Christie Hardy. Christie, welcome to the show. Thank you. Happy to be here. Thank you for making time. I know you're incredibly busy. And so as I pointed out to you before, you heard the formal intro, I always like to allow you to give your personal little perspective about who is Christie Hardy, what she all about? Why does she love mortgages? Tell us all about that. You know, I think like a lot of other successful loan officers, I really enjoy helping people. I have a gift of gab, so I enjoy talking, I enjoy getting to know people, building relationships and just enjoy the whole idea of marketing and helping people with their little largest purchaser ever going to make in their lives usually. All right. So give us a quick stats on how many years you've been doing this and 2017 volume units. Let's take care of the housekeeping, get that out of the way. Sure. You're absolutely. In this for 14 years, I just, I went to Zenix mortgage academy when I first got started, so I never was an assistant. I just went straight into originating 14 years ago and 2017, I did about 216 units for a little over 75 million. 216 units, a little over 75 million. What is your average loan size? Somewhere in the midteries, like 360,000, yeah. Okay. All right. I do a lot of small ones too. Yeah, I mean, that's really, I'm always more impressed with the people who do a lot of units or help a lot of families versus then, you know, the person who's average loan is 5,600,000. You got a lot more work to get that same level of income. No kidding. A lot of more future clients though is how I like to look at it. All right. That leads us right into the great first question. You came out of Zenix by the way. You pointed out that that. So I don't think I've had anybody on before who divulged that, if you will. Maybe they have, but I just didn't know. You found that to be a great training ground for your career. You know, it's interesting because I learned a lot. Like I learned how to do a mortgage. I learned the vocabulary and all of that, and what was most important for me, I think right after that was I had a coach. They gave you, you know, like two months of coaching and being accountable for having to do the actions that turned into results. That was really key for me. I think, oh, and not only that, but at the company that hired me, Green, like a brand new loan officer, they would pay my student loan debt if I did the work, the work that Zenix had assigned me. So and they would, if I hit a certain goal after six months, they paid off my student loan to go to Zenix. Wow. So it actually was a game changer for me because I not had that student loan looming over me. I would have left the business because I actually hated it. I really could not stand at the first few months I got into it. So yeah. What did you do? I was, I was revolving. What did you do? Well, my previous job, I was in car sales, so I worked for enterprise cars. Where else? How could that be worse? No. I used to have one with me, but I was used to, and I had done this, I had actually had just come off of like a three and a half year span of just traveling, so I hadn't worked in a long time. I hadn't worked in a long time. You had to build that work. That's what happened. Yeah, but it was also instant gratification, you know, you sell a car, you get that instant reward right away, whereas mortgages, you know, you have to deal with people for a longer span of time, you have to be patient, and the guidelines were pretty, even though they were a lot looser back then, they're still much more rigid than they were in the car business. Yeah. So I, it was just not what I was expecting. I mean, I, I knew I was good with numbers, I knew I was good with people, marketing, sales, but I didn't, you know, I didn't realize the frustrations that come along with being a loan officer. I thought it would be easy, like, like the previous, because it's kind of tough. This is easy, you know, you fell out some paperwork and a hard can it be, right? And so it was interesting because I was a broker and correspondent lender, so, and this was back when we had the fact stuff, mail, documents, you know, it was, it was very time consuming and I really just, it wasn't for me, too much paperwork. So luckily, I had the goals and I just wanted to get that student loan paid off and then I started really getting it, I started really enjoying it, what, you know, getting a little bit of success under my belt. What was the, do you, do you look back and see, was there a pivot or a shift or something that happened that made it enjoyable all of a sudden? Well, I think the paychecks, I think so, I started getting busy, now I started experiencing a little success and a higher than assistant very early on. Was that part of the recommendation coming out of Zinnix to get an assistant early? I probably was, I don't remember that being a big focus, I mean, it is now, like I've spoken to some of Zinnix folks, you know, in the past and, you know, and also I think just in real estate in general, you should focus on your strengths and my strengths was never the paperwork. My strength was never doing that. So, you know, and I literally, my business just flourished, I mean, that was 2004, times were good, things were flowing in, whether you were really actively working hard or not. So, I was, I needed an assistant. That's funny, you said that because I started in 2003 and yeah, it's like that saying the rising tide lifts all boats, you know, and then of course we had the meltdown and then the last five years or so have been pretty easy as well. And by the way, when I say that, I don't mean you haven't worked hard, I mean, the phone's been ringing, the market's been great, you know. Oh, totally, yeah. All right, so you got an assistant early on, very smart move there. So, that freed you up to do what you enjoyed doing most, which is what part of the business do you enjoy doing most? That's hard because I really like it all. I love the paperwork. The paperwork, and now there's, now it's all paperless anyway, but yeah, I enjoy being creative and finding like interesting solutions for people. And I, so I actually really like working on the hard loans. It's a blessing and a curse, but I've kind of become the person like if so and so can't do it, Christy can. And I really pride myself on that. Like I actually get a thrill when I can do something that other people have denied or can't do. So I think that's my favorite thing is working on the hard loans. Tell me what a hard loan means. How would you qualify it as a hard loan? For example, I have one right now, literally working on it right this minute. We have a client who was denied by another lender because they have an FHA loan and another, they have a previous FHA loan and they want to be a non-occupant co-barmer. Well, anyway, the other lender just said, no, I can't do it. You have an FHA loan, whatever. And so I looked at it and then I looked a little bit deeper and the other property that he has to miss again. So I looked at the LTV and it made sense for him, it actually made sense for him to do it no matter what to refinance a double conventional loan and do away with the mortgage insurance up there. And then he could be the non-occupant co-barmer for the FHA loan here. So you're a problem solver? Yes, I am. Right. And once you establish relationship as a problem solver, you pretty much have business for life. Absolutely. I really do. I get calls all the time that even listing agents will call me because they're concerned that the lender doesn't know what they're doing and they'll call just to make sure that the information they're getting is correct. So I think I really have branded myself accidentally and on purpose as a problem solver. Yeah, no, that's great. I mean, you know, we talk about branding a lot and you have to be known for something, right? Or else you get lost in the sea of noise. So I understand what you say, it's a double-edged sword because what percentage of the time do you think people just throw crap at you because they're like, ah, whatever. I mean, yeah, I think it happens a lot. And I would love to say publicly, you know, look at what I do on this crap, imagine how great I would be on the good stuff. So I do think it happens. I don't think people are doing it on purpose, but I think, you know, like listing agents will, you know, have me save a deal then stuff. Just because you're branding yourself somewhere or you're known for whatever, like some people say, well, what if I brand, you know, I want to be the first time home buyer specialist? I'm going to turn, I'm not going to get the rest of that business. That's not true. You're still going to get that other business, right? Yeah, absolutely. And that's another facet of what I love doing is helping the first time home buyers. You know, I remember when I first got a mortgage, and it was before I was a mortgage lender. And the guy who did my loan was like just so condescending. And I, you know, I'm smart, educated woman who had the finance background. And I just was like, you know, just because I don't, I'm a first time home buyer. And I was asking questions, you know, like, well, if I put five percent down, we'll have mortgage insurance. You know, I was asking probably questions that he heard on a daily basis. I was annoying for him. And I just felt like he was being very condescending. So I do think one of my strengths is, you know, my empathy and also having the ability to talk in layman's terms. You know, people, I always say, do you know what an escrow account is? Well, I like to call it like a forced savings account. So, you know, I kind of like to explain things and, you know, how I would have wanted to be explained to me. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So let's talk about your business and kind of like sources of business. Number one source of business for you is. Realtors. Realtors. Shocker for those people that want to just live online and think you don't have to work with realtors at all. Yes. Realtors. And then I wrote down from our last chat, 60% of your overall volume is realtors, right? That's correct. And by the way, I will say I don't pay for any, I don't pay to play period. All right. I love it. So you're leading this, this interview so well, so perfectly. Sorry. No, that's great. I love it. It makes my work easier. But, um, do you get, do you get presented that frequently? All this time, all the time. And it, you know, it's, I'm just really quick to say no. I just say, you know, if I did it for you and have to do it for everybody, I just can't do it. But what happens if you lose hand? And I feel like, oh, him for good. There, you know, it's okay. It's okay. They're come to me for their hard loans. I mean, honestly, that's how it ends up. They they'll send me, they'll find somebody to pay and they'll work all their zilla leads with that lender. And then they'll still send me their brother and their mother and all their friends. So and all of the tough loans that that's a little, no, I love it. By the way, your confidence is awesome. So, and listen, listeners could use a little boost of confidence and certainly about your value because that it's clearly you recognize your value in what would you just said. But I want to just pause for a moment on the whole because I know if some people listening are thinking this, wait a minute, does she just tell realtors no and then move on? I mean, what's that sound like when they're like, hey, uh, Christie, I would really love the partner with you. Tell you what, though, I mean, I'd really love my lender to like, you know, pay for some zilla leads. Christie says, yeah, I hear you, but I'm a lot like I said earlier. I can't do it just for one person. I'd have to do it for everybody. And also what I found is the zilla leads really won't get you as much bang for your buck if we partner up on doing some other things. So I'd love to contribute and help you. But maybe we can do some seminars, maybe we can do some webinars together, maybe we can do some corporate programs or, you know, find another avenue to bring in the business and I can help you market to your database. I can help you and and also all the clients that use sent me, you know, we're going to have them on such an amazing retention program that they're going to keep referring us. And I like to see myself as an extension of you. And I think I bring much more value to the table in a few hundred dollars a month. Wow. I love that. I think that's one of the best responses I've ever heard to that when I asked that question. And I'm not blowing smoke. I'm serious. Please don't, please don't do business with me. Exactly. Um, the fact that you see yourself and you tell agents you're an extension of them. I was just talking about this the other day with somebody you, so we've been in the business roughly the same time. Back in the day, that was the pitch about your value proposition, which is I'm part of your team, right? So when I'm part of your team and I'm sure you do this too, I call and I introduce myself as part of your team. And then I build you up, right? Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I do do that. Well, why have people gotten away from that? I mean, why aren't law officers getting that today? I think that they are really, um, they're afraid. I think so, you know, you, you did nail it. I'm very confident and I'm very comfortable with what I offer. And I think a lot of, um, it's easy, you know, if you get to feel that desperation or you start getting worried that times are tough and stuff, you just have to realize that you are worth more than that. And you're not just, you know, that, that realtor who's going to ask you that, I don't know, they're not necessarily the people that I want to work with. Like if they, if they only are in it for the money, then they're not in it for the relationship. So I feel like a lot of other lenders are, you know, the lenders who do that. Sometimes it doesn't make sense. I mean, you know, sometimes financially, might be a good choice, but just for me, it just seems like it's just seems silly. Yeah, I'm glad you made that point. Um, for listeners, I want to make sure that's clear. I don't think we're saying it's never a good idea. I think it's really based on the situation. It's based on if they're coming out of the gate saying pay to play, there's no relationship, that's a problem. Right. And that's what I'm talking about. I mean, there's definitely times where I'd like to help, you know, help people out. But maybe I would offer to do something more relationship focus, like having a, um, you know, like a housewarming party for our clients, or something where I can have a personal touch. I just feel like, you know, but, but like I said, it does work great for some other loan officers, I think. But then again, you know, I, I would rather spend that money doing something fun. Yeah, no, I think what we're saying is, again, it works if the relationship is there first and your sole value prop is not just a monthly paycheck, because then they're just going to bounce you for the next biggest paycheck. Exactly. But it's funny. I've been doing some research on Zelo for a presentation I'm doing. And I mean, let's face it, right? They're generating hundreds of millions of site visitors a month. I mean, it is the number one destination online for properties. That opens up a whole new conversation about Zelo, which we won't go and do here. But, um, all right. So let's, let me get about an understanding. So 60% of your businesses from realtors, are you concerned about that? Are, are you seeing realtors you work with slow down have less to send you? Yes, I am. And they are too. Everybody's feeling a little bit of a pinch right now, I believe. But it's weird. I've kind of gone the non-traditional route. I know a lot of high producers will tell you, you know, align yourself with the biggest and the best realtors out there. And I have, I mean, I definitely have some of those relationships, but I have a lot of younger newer realtors who need me, you know, like that. So like, they need me more than I need them. And so maybe they do one deal every two months or one deal every six months, but I have a lot of them. I probably have over 100 agents, maybe 150 agents that that will send me a deal here and there. Okay. I'm glad you mentioned that. I was going to ask you that anyways. So then how do you stay top of mind and engaged and appear available, you know? So that's, that is definitely one of my challenges, but I focus a lot on Facebook. And, um, you know, they're, I try to stay as interactive as I can with their lives and what they're doing, what they're posting on Facebook. And also I post content that I think they'll find valuable, like video, like I'll do videos. So they don't get to see me that often. I don't, you know, I'm busy working or whatever. So it is one great way. If I shoot a little video talking about something, you know, for some home buyer program or whatever, they may not listen to the whole thing, but they feel like they get to know me just because I'm doing a video. So I feel like I can reach a lot of people that way. And I also have like a CRM and that sort of thing where I send them weekly things. You know, I love it. I have a lot of CRM. It's, it's kind of like a, I have two CRMs as a matter of fact. One is, why do I have two? Yeah, what are they? Tell me, tell me how you use the two of them. Okay, one is internal, internal at my company. And it's called loyalty express. And that's great. And that's, that's works really well. And it does, you know, it'll, it sends out reminders and updates and different things. And then the one I've used since I got into the business, it was formerly called the Media Center. And that's called Usherpa. And that one is just, you know, I've had it for 14 years. And I just can't let it go. Like, it's just because I really become accustomed to it. And my whole database is in there. So that one's great because, you know, it sends out like quarterly newsletters in the mail. It sends out anytime I want to do a blast, like an announcement or something, I can send it through there. It helps me keep track of my daily activities. So every, every client I've ever met, every realtor I've ever input in there. I know when it's their birthday, I know it's when their, their anniversary is coming. So I think the reason I keep that, that one is because of the longevity of my database. Whereas loyalty express is only my new clients. We haven't had the loyalty express very long, only a couple months. Okay. Um, you make it a, I just want to go back to follow this realtor thread because so many alone officers out there meet, uh, realtors and they don't put them in a database. They don't market to them and things like that. Um, but obviously you're doing that, right? Yes. Okay. So they go into the, religiously, religiously, uh, back to your videos for a second. Um, the, the content videos and the realtor thing. So you will then, you meet a realtor whatever there's a connection. You're going to go on Facebook and friend them, right? Absolutely. Yes. Uh-huh. If I know I'm going to be meeting with them, my friend of first do a little bit of research on them and that sort of thing. But yeah, if I meet, meet someone at a broker's open or whatever, I, I immediately friend them probably while I'm standing right there with them. Oh, that's cool. They're like, hey, you just friended me like, yeah, boom, there we go. And the videos you're posting are those go on your business or personal page or you mix it up? I usually post them on my personal page and then share them to my business page. My business page is okay. I just feel like it's like a nice with people want to see reviews or whatever. But you know, I think it's important to have a personal page that people can relate to you. So you know, have my dogs, my kids, my family life, like I'm kind of all out there. I think that's a great point for you listening. Um, let's not forget that it's like we keep saying, it's a relationship business and people do business with people. They don't do business with the business page per se. Um, so I think that allows you that helps you kind of facilitate that trust, that like ability that, oh, my gosh, Christie's a real person. There she is with her dog, you know, all that stuff, right? Yes. Okay, so realtors. Um, anything else you're doing for realtors, events, classes, that kind of stuff? Yeah, no. I mean, I want it to be more and that's one of the, one of the things I am getting ready to incorporate. What I'm trying to do is tag up with, with an agent and, you know, another business source and do some, um, some of like we're doing now like a Zoom call where we can all be in like a group and discuss things. I love it. Like that. And I also, one of the things I really, um, this is kind of very new for me and I've only done it with a few of my clients, but the Zoom is amazing. So I really am trying to zoom with all of my clients. Beautiful. Beautiful. That's that personal connection, personal touch, because if they can't come into the office, yeah. Um, yeah, I want to go back to the, where I live, the campus crazy. Is it? The campus crazy where I used to live in Southern California? Come on. Um, you did where? That's where I worked for enterprise. So cars fill space. I, I lived all over the beach. Pasadena. Do you do you know Chris and Nikki Corbett? I mean, I was just, they were my neighbors. No, they used to work at enterprise too. Anyways, um, I probably do actually. And that's great around the same time plan. Um, okay. So back to, back to the Zoom thing for realtors, what you made me think of as, uh, I've been talking to a number of loan officers lately about doing a book study with realtors, but you just brought a new element to it, which is doing a zoom, because if you only got five or six agents, right? That's another great element to it. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it's great. And I've been, you know, I've been actually, um, reaching out to some of the agents that I want to work with and inviting them for a Zoom chat. So we'll have this, you know, like a coffee talk. Yeah. Just like a 15 minute. So instead of actually having to go anywhere, you can see I work from my home. Yeah, it's good. This is this is where I work. I don't ever leave my house really. I mostly stay here. I know it's like good thing the camera is only here, right? Cause the sweats, the shorts, whatever, you know, nobody needs to know. Actually, my husband comes home sometimes and he's like, what are you wearing? Because I'll be wearing like a like a suit jacket and yoga pants. Well, because I've been zooming or doing. Right. In full disclosure, I wear the same outfit every day. You know, I mean, it's just wash it once a week. All right. We just crossed over the TMI border. Um, totally, absolutely. No, but I love that idea of meeting agents on a Zoom call. It's like, that is totally unique and different. I don't have to waste time with coffee and buying and driving and just then then it doesn't work out. Have you done it yet? No, we haven't. Yeah. I've done a few. How's it going? Excellent. It's awesome. Wow. That's brilliant. That's brilliant. Listeners, your admission price, it just paid off. You know, should have paid extra money for free. All right. Sorry. I'm joking a little bit. Okay. So realtors, lots of that's a lot of good stuff. Let me transition real quickly because we can go on about realtors forever. I'm looking at my notes. Um, database is the other 40% of your business. You've mentioned your CRMs, all that kind of stuff. Do you do then the, um, you know, the annual mortgage reviews, things like that? I do. I have it for long. I just sort of started doing those as well. But I will, um, you know, like the database will tell me when it's their annual review. And I'm right. Lately, I've just been sending a text message saying, hey, you know, it's actually sometimes I'm doing a video like, hey, it's Christy from Atlanta because Maria just wanted to let you know, it's time for your mortgage to check up. And then I'll send a little text to go along with it. Um, and it, you know, unfortunately, I don't really feel like, I mean, most of my clients are already in a good loan, you know, in the three. Let's say our Christy. So that's going to be a challenge. But as far as mining my database on another level, what, you know, I'm very active in my community, like my neighborhood and, um, you know, my, I have some great connectors that are friends of mine that promote me more than realtors do. All right. I want to, I think it's all about getting the right people in your database to have you top of mind, not necessarily realtors, just neighborhood people, people who you know. No, I totally agree with that. I'm going to talk about community in a second, but I want to go back to the texting thing. You have a video, um, and you're texting people about, hey, it's your, you know, 12 month and, you know, anniversary, whatever that goes. Um, but is it one video sent to the same, you know, I mean, it's not a different video every time. It depends. Sometimes I'll get a little lazy and just shoot one video and send it to everyone, but normally I'll send it and I'll be like, you know, hey, Jeff, it's Christy. Just wanted to say it's been two years since we've taken a look at your loan. Are you interested in a worries check up? And then other times, I'll just say a blanket statement like, hey, it's Christy. Right. And you are texting that video out to people individually. I am, you know, my CRM send emails and I just feel like they get inundated already with emails and who knows if it just goes to their spam anyway. Like, yeah, I just feel like emails are kind of on the way out. So I feel like texting and even in step-to-message for me because I'm so active on Facebook. I feel like messenger is really a great way to get the word out to you. And I feel like they'll open it. They'll have a much bigger chance of opening it. Oh, 100%. And of course you can put a video in there too if you want. Absolutely. No, I love that. Emails are on the way out. It's scary. We always have to. No, no, it's true. All right, back to the community thing because I'm a believer in that as well. You know, when I when I teach realtors about branding and classes and rising up of the noise, I talk about how they meet in the local community as a local expert featuring the coffee shop, the pumpkin patch, whatever. How are you how are you engaging in your local community and how do you intertwine business with that if you do? I just like, well, like me, my kids are, you know, I have two boys. So I'm really involved in like the schools and swim team, any activities that they do. I kind of sponsor, you know, the school, the school had a, one of my sons' schools had a had a thing recently where they were they were giving every single student a t-shirt. So I sponsored the t-shirts, you know, so my name is on every single elementary school's t-shirt. Just different things like that. But also like we have our own, my neighborhood happens to have a Facebook page to its own. So I try and stay active on there as well. How so? How do you stay active on there? Are you posting? I don't really post a lot, but I will tell you, like, you know, the style I got my nickname, Linda to the Stars, is on this neighborhood Facebook page because someone posted, is anyone have, I'm looking to refinance, if anyone have a good lender. And then my name popped up probably 15 times, you know, like all of my friends recommending me on there in the neighborhood. And someone, someone just jokingly said, Christy, looks like you're lender to the Stars around here. And so they just sort of start sticking. So that's one thing. I stay a little bit active on there, but I also let my friends do most of the work. Yeah, so you're just going to, you're living your life in there a little bit. You're posting pictures about stuff you're doing out and about with the kids and all that, right? It's more of a, that particular place is more of a, you know, what's happening in the neighborhood. So like, I don't know. I don't really post a lot in there, but I'll comment on people's posts. Oh, okay. Well, that's a good practice. I'm not sure there's other way to do it, but, you know, No, I mean, actually, I want to, because I'm always trying to teach those that are listening, you know, and I've, I've learned all this myself from other experts. So regarding the commenting on posts, you know, you think about the opportunity you have, how many times in a day do we choose to not comment on posts or we just do the quick thumbs up selfie? Absolutely. That's like a high, that's like a drive by high five. And so if you really want to get traction and engagement on social media, you've got to actually comment. I agree. I think people will recognize how you make them feel. Like, think about, I mean, the way I always think about it, I always like to see who comments, and it makes me feel good when someone comments on my posts, versus, versus a like, it makes a difference. And now people are just getting even too lazy to make a comment. So I agree. I think commenting, and for me though, I really won't comment unless it's genuine. Like if I truly think it's a cute picture, I'll say, you know, something about it being cute, but I don't just make frivolous comments either. I think that's a little overkill. Absolutely. You've got to be sincere and genuine. It's the rules of life carry over to the rules of social media. I'm under to the stars. Okay. So how do you then become looking at your web page here, which we'll put links in the show notes to everything, but I'm looking at when I'm looking at 2013, 2014, 15, 16, 17, 18, best of loud and lender. How do you get that? Well, originally, when it first came, it's a local newspaper, but a lot of times. So anyway, the local newspaper, every year, and they have a category, you know, every year, they have the contest. In the first year, I didn't even know about it. Like someone called me and congratulated me, and they said, but congratulations, you won best of loud and I was like, wow, I didn't even know I was in the running. That's amazing. In the second year, I paid attention, but I also won. And then ever since then, the competition was gotten fierce. Like it's like really, there's probably 40 lenders going for it, and now it's about campaigning. So I literally do campaign to win now. Talking about my CRM, you know, I send out a link so they can vote now. Like it's hundreds, hundreds and hundreds, thousands of people are voting. So now I'm actually, now I don't want to lose the title. Oh, you know, nobody can get thrown. So now I'm like actively trying to win. I love it. I love it. So it's not without a lot of work. December is a lot of my December now is focused on winning that award every year. Oh, you're out campaigning. I'm out campaigning. All right, we only got a couple minutes left. What are you doing? I'm sure right now you're probably thinking about 2019 maybe evaluating a business plan strategy. Anything you're doing differently in 2019? Yes, there's actually a lot of things I just started implementing this year because I've had more time. So, you know, it started slowing down a little bit in the summer. And so I really started changing the way that I see my business. So I am now, you know, I was very much in the throes of doing all the loans and, you know, very, very maybe micromanaging every single thing. So now I've decided to change and become the CEO of my business. So now I'm very focused on being a great leader, a great mentor to my team and also focusing on different things like mindset. Definitely focusing on more web stuff with realtors and more web content. I mean, I never posted a video about work until the summer. So it's all a lot of this is brand new for me. Can you maybe give me one example of that when you say web content, web stuff, do you have any thoughts in mind of what that will tell? Well, yeah, just like the Zoom calls. I don't know I want to call it web, but you know, face-to-face meetings with my clients. That's new. And implementing a very rigid system. So it's every single client goes through the same exact system. Yes. Before I would make, you know, I had systems with my mind, but I never really wrote it down and got it out and shared it with my team. And now my team and I've we've collaborated and made it like excellent. I mean, it already was smooth, but now we know exactly who's doing what at every step of the game. Yeah, what they you sometimes heard called the perfect loan process. Exactly. Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Well, listen, I know you've got to go. You're busy. You've got to do some Zoom calls with clients and realtors, hopefully. I'm going to steal that idea. And by the way, I'm going to talk about it and I'll give you credit for across the board. Awesome. Thank you so much. You bet. So if anybody wants to reach out to you, what would be the best way to contact you? My phone number, I always answer my phone, 571-246-6767. Or that's fine. You can go to lender to thestars.com if you want to find my. Just say that to somebody and they're like, I'm in. That's awesome. All right. So thank you again once for tuning in. And listeners as always, we appreciate you tuning in. If you like this episode, let us know. We just review out there wherever you're listening to this on the W.W. And we'll see you on the next one. Thanks a lot. Bye 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 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. 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