Ep #12: The Ultimate Guide to Hosting REALTOR Classes

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with 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. This 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. Well, welcome to another edition of Mortgage Marketing Radio. I am your host, Jeff Zimper. Thank you for tuning in. So we're doing something a little bit different today. Today, you've got just me. That's right, no special guest interview today because I wanted to dive deep into this topic of how to succeed with hosting realtor classes and workshops. And so I wanted to address the kind of the issues that I see come up most often for loan officers in struggling to host real estate agent classes and workshops and in bottom line in succeeding with real estate agents in general. You know, when you think about it, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. And that's so critically important when it comes to, you know, partnering with real estate agents and your first engagement that you have with agents out in the marketplace and what are the first words that you say when you engage with them, be it in person or over the phone. And so I want to spend a little bit of time today diving in on today's podcast all about the challenges that you're facing most often when it comes to, right, attracting, approaching, converting real estate agents to referral partners. So the problem stems from the traditional approach, right? And the traditional approach is typically something that is cold marketing, meaning a cold introduction. There's no pre-existing relationship there with the real estate agent. Let's say if it's a cold call, if it's meeting somebody at an open house or whatnot. And I'm not saying networking doesn't work and it's, you know, not useful. It definitely is, but if you want to actually have a proven, repeatable system of success and actually having predictability, you're going to need a process for that, right? It's not going to be winging. It's not going to be shooting from the hip just one off. It needs to be a process that's well thought out. And that is refined and applied on a consistent basis, not just onesy, twosy. Does that make sense? You know, there's a quote that I love from W Edwards Deming, who's actually kind of referred to as the, you know, father or grandfather of the total quality movement, TQM movement in the United States in this winner of multiple awards, including the Malcolm Baldwin Ridge award for quality. But anyway, Edwards Deming was a big believer in systems. And one of his quotes is 94% of all failure is the result of a system not people, 94% of all failure result of a system not people. And furthermore, small business guru, one of my, you know, mentors, if you will, Michael Gerber, author of the e-meth, why most small businesses fail and what to do about it. You know, he's been quoted many times and often referred to as the saying is, you know, the system is the solution, right? And that's what it comes down to, you know, is the system, is a solution. What's, think about the systems you have in your life and for, in other areas, right? It's system for how about eating right, right? You have a system for choosing the right foods, choosing making better choices, or as I used to like to say, making better bad choices, right? Trying to improve those choices. You have a system for staying healthy and fit for working out. Maybe your system is, you work out first thing in the morning before the day gets away for you and gets too crazy. Maybe your system is taking lunch like I do. I block out, you know, every day, approximately around the noon hour, right, for what I call my WOD, work out of the day, okay? So everything that's successful and that's dependable, usually has some type of a system attached to it, a system for a car, right, running for, it's got to have fuel, right? It's got to have power through the battery, electricity running through it. Your phone, for you, for you to be able to access and utilize your phone on a consistent basis and, you know, it all comes down to the system. And so you need to have three core systems to be able to successfully, you know, to succeed with real estate agents. And that is this. You need to have a system for attracting agents, meaning getting in front of agents or you don't, agents getting in front of you, but bottom line becoming known, right, amongst your local agent community, you need to attract, be, have a process for engaging, right? Engaging in a conversation, a dialogue, something that allows agents to get to know you like you and trust you over time. And then lastly, you need to have a system for converting agents to referral partners. Obviously, you're not going to convert 100%, nobody bats a thousand, you're going to convert a certain percentage, you may not know what that is, it will change in very over time. But unless you have a system for all three attracting, engaging and converting, what do you have? Nothing, right? You have a wish, a hope, and a prayer. And that is what I see is the biggest reason why mortgage loan originators struggle is because our friend, as W. Edwards said, 94% of all failures result of the system, not the people. So it's not your fault, hey, congratulations, good news, right? It's not your fault. It's the fact that you don't have a system. So I want to help you today get a system in place. As you know, I'm a big believer in fan and I think the most effective and efficient system for doing all those those three steps I talked about, attract, engage and convert real estate agents. I believe the best and most effective system for that is teaching, hosting, aging classes and workshops. And there's some specific reasons why I believe that's the case and let me share a couple of those with you and you tell me if you agree or not, okay? Number one, it starts with this idea that you need to rise above the noise, right? What I essentially, you need a platform. Think about the concept of picture this in your mind if you will of a lighthouse, right? So a lighthouse has the ability to be seen from far away. It guides people to a destined port. It is a kind of a safe destination to take me into that trusted area if you will. It stands out from other things around it. It gets noticed amongst a lot of noise, if you will. You need a platform to be able to increase your visibility to scale your reach and to drive engagement. Does that make sense? I mean, in your local community of real estate agents, there's a lot of noise, right? There's other loan officers competing for their attention. So if we need to rise above that noise, we need to think like that beacon of light, a lighthouse in our local community amongst real estate agents, and we're not going to get the attention or notice we deserve or want by following the traditional methods of the traditional sales process, which is interruption marketing, right? Whole calling, door knocking, closed offices in house lenders, so on and so forth. Simply not effective, not highly leveraged, okay? So the traditional sales models broken, only 2% of coal calls result in an appointment. And the process by which people are open and receptive to engaging with you and buying from you and building that trust and likeability, it's changed. It's not what it used to be, right? The old sales funnel, if you will, is you know, get somebody's attention by interrupting them, right? Hopefully generate some interest and then go for the close. Well, today it's different. Today people engage on what you've heard referred to people call a journey, a buyer's journey. Real estate agents are the same way, right? They're human beings. They are engaging on a journey, a process of first A, becoming aware of you and then B, being able to engage with you over time to build that likeability and that trust so that they can ultimately reach that point of conversion commitment decision to say, yes, I'm going to send you a referral. I'm going to trust a little bit more. I'm going to extend the olive branch because you've built up some trust and affinity and value with me over time. This is a process that doesn't happen instantly and is unlikely to happen exclusively from a single call call. It's, as I've been alluding to all along, a process, it is a process, not an event. Does this make sense? If we're going to succeed with agents at scale, we need a process for getting them in the top of the funnel to be able to build that engagement and that trust so that a certain percentage come out the bottom of the funnel and convert to referral partners. Are you with me so far? Great. Let's keep talking about then why teaching agent classes is the best method for this. Not only is it helping you build your platform to get awareness to become known, but it's also positioning you as an authority. Typically, how do you view somebody who's providing content or education that's useful and relevant to you? Does that build a certain amount of trust and affinity with you? I would think so. Does that position that person as someone of an authority? I mean, you think about somebody like Tony Robbins or Gary Vaynerchek or Michael Hyatt, Dave Ramsey. All right, the list goes on and on. This is Brown, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy. These people have positioned themselves by using a platform and a platform from a variety of ways, whether it's speaking, writing blog posts, those types of things, creating videos. That's all goes into building the platform, but that's also, they're teaching, they're providing information and they're positioning themselves by default because they're doing those activities. They're perceived as an authority, they're standing out and being unique, they're looked upon as already being successful and they are attracting people to them to want more, to want to engage, to get more of what they're giving out, the content, the ideas, the tips, the tools, the strategies, the guidance, right? Because that's what people want. So a great benefit to teaching engine classes is those positioning elements. It is a great platform, a conduit to build your brand, to position yourself as an authority and unique and successful and as a distribution channel through which to add tremendous value. That value in the way of content, ideas, tips, tools, resources, information that helps agents with a problem they have and these problems are typically in the area of business. How do I attract more buyers and sellers? How do I manage my business more successfully? How do I keep up with all the latest tools in terms of online offline, social media? How do I make sense of it all? How do I manage my time better? I mean, the list goes on and on. What we need to understand is we become a conduit for helping them with that. Adding value, we're making a difference. We are making deposits in that the bank account of the KLT bank, right? I want you to imagine that each real estate agent you interact with, right, is a bank account for you, each one of them. Those bank accounts will produce a certain return. The bank account called real estate agent will not produce any return unless you've made deposits in that in the form, the currency of value, right? Because that is going to add the value through these ideas and solutions and teaching agent classes and sharing content with them in various forms is going to make emotional deposits in there to build your KLT factor, the no-like interest factor. That will begin to pay dividends like any other financial account that pays dividends. The dividends you receive are in the form of ultimately referrals. That doesn't come without first having the KLT factor, right, no-like interest. You continue to build up the balance in those bank accounts by continuing to make deposits through the value you add, not through the great rates, great service we close in 12 days. Even things such as VA programs and heroes, homes for heroes and all those other things, heroes are all relevant and useful. But if it's strictly product-based, we begin to lose our effectiveness or uniqueness with that when other companies and loan officers have the same products to be able to offer, right, whether it's the 10-day close or whatever it is. But it's the fact that by association, their life is improving because you're making deposits into their bank account to help them grow and enhance and become better real estate agents. They're not getting that from anyone else, any other mortgage loan officers in your local area. Does this make sense? So by you doing that, you're immediately distancing yourself from all the noise, okay? So let's continue on. Why else would you want to teach real estate agents classes? Well, it's a numbers game. You need to put the law of large numbers to your benefit, to work for you, right? It's interesting. Today, you need more agents than you did in the past. I just watched a video the other day from a top producing mortgage loan officer in Arizona. Last year, she closed 500 units, 500 loans, okay? She has 70 real estate agents that refer her business, 70. How many do you have? Four. Do you even have 10? And if you need 10, 20, 40 agents, whatever that number is for you, how hard is it going to be to get there using your current methods? Are you doing it onesy-tuzy, coffee talk, cold call, let's meet, let's chat, have lunch? If so, it's a long road. Teaching agent classes helps you scale your reach. You reach more agents and less time. By reaching more agents and less time, you're able to improve your conversion rate and more quickly get to the volume of referrals that you need because in order to get referrals, you need multiples of real estate agents because we know agents perform at different levels. Out of 70 agents, not every single agent is going to give you a referral every single week or month. It doesn't work like that. You know this. That's why we need a large base of agents because they'll be varying levels of productivity. So we need to balance that out so we don't experience the constant roller coaster in our business. Does this make sense? Now, obviously you can balance out the roller coaster of production of funding in your business by having other sources of business than just real estate agents. And I encourage you to do so. Your past database, other referral partners like financial planners, some types of direct consumer response marketing that you're doing, your online activities, whatever it is. There's those other pillars and those are all relevant in certain situations. But I'm here today to talk about getting referrals from real estate agents because historically, that is the highest ROI or ROE return on effort when applied correctly. Why? Because it doesn't require you to spend thousands of dollars in paying leads and buying ads and whatever the case is that with algorithms that are always changing and having to have multiple things set up to be able to capture and convert those leads. With real estate agents, you're going to the source. You're going to where 98% of buyers go today to purchase a home and that is a real estate agent. Those are the NAR statistics, not mine. People get online to look at homes, yes, but then almost just shy of 100% of them actually obtain that home through a real estate agent. That's why it's still what I call an oil well in your business. That oil well is once it's tapped, it continues to produce black gold, steady stream of referrals for you on an ongoing basis. Are you with me? Great. Then let's talk about the other important element to hosting real estate agent classes. Why it's so powerful and that is because of the personal impact that you experience, the day experience of in person versus online. Think about the elements that go into building trust, building rapport. Think about the significant other that you have in your life, your spouse, your boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it is, just friends for that matter. Think about the attributes of building a relationship, building that trust, building that likability and so on and so forth and really just being comfortable with somebody and feeling and becoming a friend, four out of six of the most important attributes of building a relationship cannot be achieved without the power of in person, which requires a rich communication environment. What do I mean by that? There are some examples of that. I'm glad you asked, right, how about if you are engaging on something and have the ability to capture and focus someone's attention on shared content that does not happen online. I'm sorry, it doesn't, Facebook, email, all good and relevant, but as you know, you are a click away from online. In a moment's notice, somebody can be distracted by the next dancing cat video or the email that comes in their inbox and your dust. Secondly, when you're in person and in front of somebody, what you else you've got going for you is your tone of voice, right, unless it's a video or an audio, such as listening to right now, you get to experience my tone of voice, but if it's not, that's removed from the elements of successful communication. Obviously, facial expressions, body language, right, hand movements and gestures, just the physicality of being in the presence of another human being. It allows you to build trust faster, develop more rapport and like ability, which gets you and your agents further down the road to that point of, are we going to do the tango or not? Are we going to become referral partners? Are we going to be interested in, do we have synergy in working with each other, right? That's why the power of a person is so much more powerful than online. As great as online is, right, you look at all the elements that you've got going in your favor with agent classes and workshops, positioning, right, puts you in the power position. You flip the funnel because agents are coming to you instead of you chasing them. It's a system for putting agents in the top of the funnel, right? You're establishing authority, standing out from the noise and you're instantly perceived as unique and successful. You're not asking for a loan yet. You're being a go-giver instead of a go-taker. To quote my friend Bob Berg, author of the go-giver, which you can hear on a previous podcast. Obviously, with teaching agent classes, you're scaling your reach, getting in front of more agents more quickly, to sift and sort through the large numbers, right? It shortens the usual timeline that it takes to meet the required number of agents. You're normally chasing down individually one by one, so more agents and less time means improve your conversion rate. Of course, as I just mentioned, the impact of in person, okay? Unless that forget that, if you look at the top producer list, whether it's Scott Simmons Guide, whether it's the, you know, more professional magazines and so on and so forth, look at the list of activities that they do to build their agent business. And you'll see 80% of them on average, if not more, at some point or another in their business have used agent classes, workshops, lunch and learns and whatnot, as a key pillar of their business, for all the reasons that I just mentioned. And you can listen to some of the previous interviews on this podcast to confirm that. So in reaching the end here and kind of getting to close here, you know, there's multiple moving parts that go into obviously hosting agent classes and workshops, right? And as I've said, consistently throughout this, it's a process, right? It's not a one time event and that it can be done wrong, you know, in a recent webinar or I did, I surveyed the audience and I asked them, what are the two biggest areas that you struggle with if you've hosted agent workshops in the past? And one of the biggest ones was filling the room, getting butts in the seats. So I want to spend a couple of minutes about the five steps to hosting a successful agent event, okay? So number one, it comes down to this, choosing a compelling topic. Don't overdo it with mortgage topics. Focus on business related topics, right? From marketing to social media, database marketing, agents are hungry for good content related to their specific business challenges. By the way, you can take a survey, a poll, do a poll on Facebook, okay? There's a polling feature built into Facebook, really easy to do that. Send out a basic email poll, ask for, you know, two answers back, three answers back. What's the biggest issue you struggle with in your business right now? That should be a standard question you have for every agent sit down you have, right? Dive in, do a needs analysis. So number one, if you want to capture agent's attention, you have to have a compelling topic, right? Can't just be the same old, run of the mail topic that everybody else is doing you've heard of before. Some examples of done for you presentations that we've done in the past, new rules of real estate marketing, how to get noticed and get clients in today's noisy world, right? Money or real estate marketing, your social media sucks, five easy steps to get, stop getting ignored and get more clients from Facebook, YouTube and more. Secrets of lead, follow-up and conversions, 25 tips from top producers, right? These are all very business related specific to the real estate agent challenges. So number one, compelling topic. Number two, element two, hosting a successful agent event, don't do it alone, partner with affiliates, team up with your local title, escrow, home warranty and insurance rep. It's a great way to help spread the word, defer costs amongst the group, for launch, coffee, whatnot. But most importantly, these affiliates, title escrow, et cetera, home warranty, they can get in offices you can't get into. They've got access to agents you don't even know. They can tell you who are the good agents and who aren't. They can help get butts in the seats. They, by partnering with you, you have now borrowed credibility. You have implied trust because the agents that they have relationships with already, they already know like and trust them. So there's the implication that, oh, well, if you know, Mary Jo from ABC title is teaming up with, you know, Frank over at ABC lender, huh, must be a good deal because I know Mary Jo and she wouldn't align herself with anything that's not professional and useful. Does this make sense? Okay, number three, what I used to call shock and awe marketing, I'm not calling multi-channel marketing, it's the same thing, it's basically use multiple tools and methods and channels to promote your launch in workshop class. Those include event flyers, social media, email, broker preview meetings, border realtor meetings, Asian office meetings. You need to have a shock and awe approach, get the word out in a large way. Okay, number four, use technology to help offload some of the heavy lifting, if you will. Technology such as event bright, right, which allows you to easily set up a professional reservation page with built-in Google map, with a ticket counter, with the ability to print and deliver both digital and printed tickets, for you to print out an event, a attendee list, send reminders, it's just a phenomenal tool that you don't have to worry about it once they click the RSVP button or go to the website address you're given with event bright to make a reservation, they do it all for you and it's free. Number five, most importantly, the F word. We're going to keep it clean for now, but you know what the F word is, freaking follow up, okay? It's a free event, the real estate agents, they're busy, expect a 30% no-show rate, don't be shocked by that. But to maximize attendance, you must follow up multiple times, and I'm not even talking about the post event follow up, I'm just talking about pre-event, make at least three confirmation calls, once at the immediate time of the RSVP within 24 hours, twice leading up to the event, the minimize drop off, okay? That's just before the event, and think about it, it gives you a great opportunity to connect with the real estate agents so that now you're starting to build kind of, instead of co-call it to warm call, you're getting to know these people, even if it is a voicemail, they've heard your voice on the voicemail, they're beginning to get a sense of who you are, and now when you get to your presentation, you don't feel like, oh my gosh, these people are total strangers, I don't know who they are. You've called, maybe you've had a chat, you've left a message, a couple of laughs, a connection on one or two of points, you know, you know each other the same people, we worked on this transaction, whatever the case is. But most importantly, it's the personal touch that's going to make the biggest difference in your follow-up, are you with me so far? What do you think? Do you think that hosting agent classes and workshops can be the most effective means for you to quickly and easily capture more agents? Get more loans in your pipeline? If you'd like more training on this, I've put together a special guide to help you to dive in even deeper. It's called the ultimate guide to hosting realtor classes. How to quickly and easily capture more agents, build trust, and get more referrals. What it is, it's an excerpt, it's a sample lesson from a master class called Powerful Presentations. That's available at certain periods throughout the year when we open up enrollment. But basically what this guide is, is a 10 page report taking you through even further in depth that we just covered right here today on the podcast. I want to make that available to you. It's a great download for you, free, it's no charge for that, just as a thank you for being part of our community here. If you want to grab that, there's a link below in the podcast, the show notes there. You can find it at getpowerfulpresentations.com slash ultimate guide. Just look at the show notes, there'll be a direct link to it. If you like what you've heard here today, let me know, maybe share a comment or two. Feel free to reach out to me and we will be back next week with another podcast, special guest soon to be announced. So stay tuned for that. And feel free to just check in with me on our Facebook page at the Mortgage Marketing Institute over there on Facebook. Love to see you over there. Hope you're liking what you've heard today. If you like this podcast, do me a favor. Subscribe on iTunes, there's a subscribe button right down below there. Feel free to leave it a comment or two, leave a rating, you know, that's how we build our awareness. This is free for you. And so if you're liking this, getting value out of it, just let us know, subscribe so you never miss another show and let us know if you like it. Okay. Once again, this has been Jeff Zimper, your host for Mortgage Marketing Radio brought to you by Mortgage Marketing Institute and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks and make it a great day. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in Mortgage Marketing, get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.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 done for you agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, attract and convert agents into referral partners, plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class, getting agents, butts and seeds, partnering with affiliates, real easy. But that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top LOs, authors, speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market. And as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members, you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months and we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you. So you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagedmarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call, we'll have a chat, we'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro.