Ep# 121: How to Balance Agent Referrals with Buying Internet Leads

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. 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. Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey, listeners, what's up? This Jeff Zimper, your humble host and chief truth teller at the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. So glad you've tuned in. If you're first time listener, thanks for being here. If you're a long time listener, I much appreciate you. I want to give a quick shout out to one of our loyal listeners, Andrew C. Andrew writes another awesome show, another great show from Jeff. Oh, thank you. You always provide great guests and drill down with your questioning to get real usable information that I can implement into my mortgage business. Thanks. Keep the great podcast going. Andrew C. If you're listening, you're the man you get a podcast swag t-shirt coming to you. How do you get one? Hey, just hit me up on Facebook, message me. I've got to get your mailing address and your t-shirt size, or you can always email me directly podcast at Mortgage Marketing Radio. So thank you for your reviews. Keep the reviews coming, as that helps us reach more people and know that we're making a bigger difference for you. And frankly, it just feels good to connect with you guys and know that this passion project is making an impact. That's what it's all about for you, making a difference in your life and your business, bringing you relevant information, tools and resources to help you succeed in your business. So speaking of that, let me tell you about our sponsor. As you know, our parent company is the Mortgage Marketing Institute and under that umbrella exists resources, several different resources. One, that I want to point you out to, in case you've not there yet, is I have a free ebook for you, a guide, if you will, it's called the ultimate guide to teaching agent classes, the number one way to get more agent referrals in less time. Could copy that a couple of ways you can get that. You can go right to the homepage at Mortgage Marketing Institute.com and you'll see right on there is an image of the book without opportunity to click a link, get the download and grab that ultimate guide to teaching agent classes. It has been downloaded at hundreds and hundreds of times and it is consistently, as you know, one of the primary ways that top producing loan officers succeed in attracting and capturing real to referrals. So once again, that's Mortgage Marketing Institute.com. I will put a link in the show notes, just go there and grab the ultimate guide to teaching agent classes. All right. So let's get into this week's show and my special guest. So I'm doing something a little bit different here today. I wanted to mix it up a little bit as you know, I often do that to keep it interesting and relevant for you guys. And this is dealing with a conversation of, you know, looking at two different types of businesses or a hybrid type of a business. And what I mean by that is, right, there's the traditional type of business where, you know, hey, going after real referral partners, that kind of stuff. And then there's what often people would consider, you know, an alternate way to build your business right. And right, buying leads, paying for leads and those types of things. And my special guest, you know, he and I have a unique connection together, actually, his name is Blake Bianchi. I'm not sure if that name is familiar for some of you, but it is for me because when I was at, you know, I can 2003 for about six years there, his dad, John Bianchi was my regional director. John Bianchi is a stud. He was at one time, one of the top producing loan originators in the country, exactly his volume. And we're talking back though in the 2000s, right, and it was, it was huge, right? I'm talking hundreds of millions, millions of dollars a year, hundreds of loans of units per year down in San Diego and was a visionary in a lot of the ways that he built his business and built his local brand and his team down there in San Diego. So it's got a great to kind of reconnect and realize that the industry is still a very small industry. But I'm having Blake on because Blake and I had a conversation about a week ago, he has built a business that is a hybrid business, meaning he started his business, he's only 25, by the way, right? So for anybody who's listening that might be younger and up and coming in the business, there might be a great episode for you to kind of dig into. But he started out. He's only been in the business about three years and started out, you know, as many people do in that, his personal statements, right? And built a pretty good stable of real estate agents as referral partners there. But also, and this is really kind of the core of why I Blake on the podcast is he's also diversified his business sources and started investing in purchasing leads for quite a while. He was actually buying long-form Zillow leads and doing quite well with those. And obviously since Zillow is acquired a mortgage company, you notice some changes in, you know, what's happening over there and decided to pull his investment away from Zillow spend over there and invest in buying leads from places like lending tree, bank rate, nerd wallet, and some other places. And so I wanted to have Blake on just to have kind of a candid conversation around the two different types of businesses, you know, referral-based, local, relationship-focused versus online lead gen, perhaps, you know, more transactional, less loyal, if you will, which he admits to as well. And just unpacking kind of what you can expect if you're at all considered buying leads, perhaps. And what you need to have in place, the systems, the processes, what you need to be prepared for, because he's actively doing it, right? But I also thought there might be an opportunity for some of you listening that might want to dip your toe in the water here, just for Blake investing about a thousand bucks a month, right? One to three thousand a month. I mean, he's definitely getting a positive ROI on that in terms of loans closed. And he's also set up a pretty unique system in reversing the process, which I think would be interesting for you guys as well, meaning he wants to now feed real estate agents with pre-approved buyers, right? Everybody talks about, hey, that's the holy grail, that's what agents would love from lenders. Well, he's doing it, right? And so, and yet he's early in the process, and I want to make it very, very clear that we talk about the mistakes most of you listeners, loan officers make when you're deciding to, whether it's even, you know, spend money on the ads, whether it's buy leads from these different portals, don't do it without having the proper understanding of the different styles. And so that is. And secondly, don't do it without having your operations drilled in, meaning your systems and policies. Don't do it if you don't have a CRM to automate the immediate reach of texting and phone calling and, you know, various other elements that those types of buyers experience response. And you'll hear Blake talk about how he saw differences in the drop off rate and the conversion of those leads when it went beyond the few minutes. Pretty interesting. So it's a nice kind of, you know, candid conversation is this going to be right for everybody? No. But that's one of the things I want to make a point about when it comes to lead generation, right? What works? The $64,000 question. Hey, what works with lead generation, the mortgage and real estate business? You want the truth? Here's the truth. Everything works. But not everything works all the time or for everybody everywhere. So it's situational, right? About who you are, the type of business you want to build and what works in one area might not work in another area. What works for one person might not work for another person. Yes, principles remain the same tactics change, and that's why I wanted to be to you because these are some tactics that may or may not be relevant for you. And at the least start to think about, you know, down the road, if you want to kind of start to pivot and look at some more consumer direct activities, some ideas for you around that. So I hope you find it useful, wanted to mix that up a little bit on this, and I got a lot of respect for Blake in terms of what he's doing, right? For being a young stud man, he's only 25 years old, pretty smart. And after it, role models, dad was some great catching there. But that's it. Let's get into the show. Blake, welcome to the show. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me. You bet, man. You're really thrilled to have you. And thanks for reaching out. It's funny. You know, when you connected with me, obviously you tell last name, Blake Bianchi. For those who don't know, let's just full disclosure right now, you don't have a unique connection. Your dad was my regional manager when I worked at Countrywide, man, back at the day, 2003. So the fact that you and me are talking is like crazy, unbelievable. How it's such a small world. So tell the listeners number one, how long you've been in the mortgage business? Sure. So I'm 25. I've been in the industry for this my fourth year. So I started getting into production about two years ago. My first couple of years were just working on a team and kind of assisting and learning the process. And so, and then last year, I became a broker. So that's when I transitioned over and yeah, everything's just working on, on building the business. All right. You became a broker. So that's interesting. That's on a lot of people's great art these days, right? The resurgence of the broker market. Why did you make that choice? Yeah. I think for me, you know, a lot of, a lot of people that I was working with that at work, and the same age bracket as me didn't, didn't always get questioned as far as pricing goes. And consumers were getting, I feel like consumers were getting a lot smarter about how they shot our mortgage. So for me, I kept the list of how many loans I was losing versus how many I was keeping and the list on the, on the losing loans, I got a lot bigger than the other side. And for me, you know, at a certain point, you, you want to try something new versus see what the difference is. So that's when I became a broker. And still, you know, even becoming a broker, there's still other obstacles that you don't get from, you don't have on the retail side. But overall, I wanted to try a low price model and see if that would help me build my business. Okay. And do you think it's made a difference for you? I do. Yeah. I think, you know, this time last year, I only had about maybe $2 million in closing. Right now, I have about $6 million and can close so far and probably another three or four this month. So yeah, for me, it's, you know, my business is skyrocketed because of that. And it goes back to Anthony Costa did a post a couple days ago about customer acquisition. And, and, you know, the whole idea is to get the client in, give them the best deal. And then the referral after that is three or four people. So for me, I'm, right now I'm getting a lot of referrals whereas before I didn't get a lot of referrals. So yeah, I think that it helped me a lot. Well, so that's an interesting topic of discussion because there's a number of directions I could go hearing what you just said, right? And I'm sure some listeners are probably having a similar thought pattern in their head about, well, well, there's multiple, multiple reasons and I know you know this. But there's, let's, let's talk about the elephant in the room. There's multiple reasons as to why you may not be getting a referral that can have to deal with. Price might be part of that. Obviously customer experience, process, service, post-close, all that kind of jazz. And I don't want to hang out here too long because that's not why we had you on the, have you on the show. But are you saying then that you trying to, I'm trying to articulate this, you just feel you've got a stronger value proposition because you've got, you think is a, you've got a much better price offering being a broker. Yeah. And I think that it's more than just pricing, right? It comes to client experience, you know, operations and everything in between, not just pricing. And so I think I had that client experience pretty good, the way I wanted it to be as far as, you know, video and automation and, and edge point and, and the pricing was where I was missing out. So when I threw that in there, finally, then everything took off. But I do think that, I do think that customer retention and, and all that does come from, you know, follow up and things like that because you hear a lot of brokers that, you know, the client got called by clicking loads after they close or something and they got refinanced and they're mad at clicking because they called their client. I think for a broker that comes down to retention and how you follow up with your clients and, and the experience you gave them during the process because, you know, 99% of my clients aren't going to go refinance them where else they're going to call me first and say, Hey, I got this mailer in the mail. What do I do? So yeah, I think that pricing does help, but it's more about the experience. Yeah. Number 10. And so I'll play the devil's advocate with that a little bit, right? Because they're going to get that mailer regardless, right? If they're at a bank or, or broker. So it all does come back to you as the individual professional to build a fence around those clients. Right. Yeah. Okay. Cool. Well, let's pivot to why we really brought you here. Number one, because you're probably trying to remember it. You might be in the, and this is all props to you, man. So I hope you take it the right way. The youngest guest I've had ever on the show, all right? Because you know, the average age of an LL is like 50 something, right? Yeah. So you are. You are this, this group of people that I love that you're coming. You know, there's, there's, you know, the younger folks, so to speak, that makes me sound so old. So I apologize. But you know, I'm saying we got a whole new influx of people coming in who never went through the meltdown, right? That mean your dad went through and all that kind of stuff. And you guys are bringing in like a fresh set of eyes and attitude to the business, which is cool. And so why I wanted to have you here is because we're going to get to this in a moment, but we're talking about consumer direct and online lead gen and a conversation around that. Now, before we get there, though, I think the other thing that I wanted to bring up and talk about, which I think you are wise enough, you've probably had some good coaching. Why is enough to recognize is that you first started out building a referral based business from real estate agents primarily, right? Right. Now, was that intentional? Was that like, you know, hey, you're speaking to, to, to, you know, you get some guidance from, from your dad in that case or why, why was that your route? Yeah. I think, you know, the traditional officer has always been taught the model of, you know, calling your top 40. I, I took the core training as well, and it's all about prospecting, right? Time blocking prospecting, you know, how many agents can you call on a day for your A, B, C's? So that, that's the way I was, you know, that's where my dad did it. And so I didn't reinvent the wheel. It was more like, let's get, you know, you get to the basics no matter what in this business. Yeah. So you're, you're time blocking your calling. But yeah, that was the way I, I started out my business and, um, and it was good. And, you know, it takes a long time to build trust in a highly competitive market too. So, you know, I think it took me a year to break into my first couple of realtors and, and some are, I'm on my 30th year now and just breaking in. So it takes a long time to get that business going. And, and so for me, I needed to figure out a way to grow a quicker because that was always the goal to grow quick. And so that's when I started, you know, doing a little bit more consumer direct and kind of researching how to implement that side of the business and also use it to help grow my referral business. So. Yeah. And to be clear. So you said competitive market. Are you in San Diego? Yeah. Yeah. We're in San Diego. Right. Okay. Yeah. So obviously very competitive market there. Much like it was for me. In Orange County. Okay. So, and you've done pretty good with the, the realtor referral business thus far. How have you found that to be? By the way, I'm curious. The journey to the road. How would you describe that? Yeah. We all love realtors. Is that okay? I'm more selective on who I work with now, only because, you know, in the beginning, you're trying to get everyone. It's a big huge net. You're trying to fill it up. And you get burned out. And so, you know, it's almost easier to burn your business when you pick the right people to work with too. But, but yeah. I mean, I love realtor business. You know, you just got to find the right people. And also, you know, participating with them and marketing and doing things like that. You want it to be with someone who has the same vision as you. Otherwise, things just don't line up. All right. So you mentioned something last time we talked. You ran up against some resistance against agents. One of the things that I wrote down that you mentioned is, was there a perception issue because of your young age from these, because again, most realtors are 50 plus. So you had to come up against that, right? Yeah. And, you know, in initial meetings and things like that, they may not say that exactly. But you feel it. And it makes sense, right? Because you got loan officers that are 50, 50 years old that have been data for 20 years. And then you got, you know, a new guy coming in has been doing it for a couple of years telling you, you can do everything the same, the same. And we won't know. An expertise takes a while to develop. And I think I developed it pretty fast. But, yeah, I mean, there's always that age issue. So I try to figure out ways to add value to come, you know, I'm back at realtors with more value. Where they're willing to take a shot, a shot with me. And when they did, then we could perform. All right, man. Let's, let's, let's go through a little routine here. I'm sure you got it pretty wired. How did you get realtors to kind of give you a shot? How, you know, how did you kind of position value, aside from great rates, great service? Yeah, so, you know, I think as the market continues to change, marketing is becoming a huge piece. And a lot of realtors don't have that, have that down yet. So my, I guess my value add was, hey, I can show you, you know, how to get the website. I'd be like, I'll show you how to design these, you know, your postcards, the food to go to and how to print them and kind of just do the whole marketing angle for them. At the, at the same time, this was about two years ago. I also started with Zillow. And so I had a lot of Zillow leads coming in. And whenever, whenever I got someone that didn't have an agent, I basically told the other agents, hey, you know, if you want to be, do I work with me and give you an opportunity? And then I'll give you clients to return. So we were, we were trying to funnel our Zillow leads back to, to the agents that would give us opportunity. Mm-hmm. And that, that was a huge value add because a lot of the realtors are used to the, the loan officer calling them and just asking them for the business, but not, they're not giving them anything in return. So, I want to make sure I understand that. Were you already deciding then to, what were you doing buying long form leads on Zillow? Yeah, at that time it was long form leads on Zillow. And we were doing Op City too. Op City was a lead gen company. That one didn't work out as well. Good conversion for us, but not for handing it off to realtors. Zillow, 75% of those people that came through Zillow didn't have a realtor. So that was a good opportunity for us. And again, I don't like, you don't have to get specific. But roughly, what was your spend on those Zillow long form leads? We spent $1,000 a month on Zillow. And for that you would get roughly. You get, they give you a range, maybe 20 to 30 leads. It all depends on loan amount and the area they're buying in, so that changes the price. And how many of those roughly were able to convert? So, you're getting 20 leads, a thousand bucks. Is what I heard right? Yeah. How many of that range? How many, how many, you know, you know where I'm going, man. How many, you've got your numbers, apples. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think contact rate with online leadgen, especially Zillow is about speed. We almost got, we got about 50% of them on the phone if we called them within 30, 60 seconds within the first minute they came through. If we waited five minutes or more, it was about a 15, 20% conversion rate as far as calling them and getting them on the phone. Wow. So, yeah, it goes way down when you wait. And they do it in a day or so. They're already being hammered by so many lenders that they're not going to answer your phone anymore. So, what's your goal in the first call? Are you going for an app? You know, a lot of calls to other people try to take the phone app, you know, over the phone when the lead comes in. I think it's a little much. I like to feel what the consumer is looking for, right? If they're just saying, hey, you know, I forgot what I'm pretty proof for. Perfect. I'm just trying to, you know, give them a good idea, give them the links in my website to the digital application and kind of guide them more as an advisor than trying to get their app. Because a lot of these are, these are purchased leads. They're refinered leads and I take the app right there and try to get them going. But with purchase leads, you don't want to be too pushy because it's almost a turn off. So, I try to provide value and then put them on, you know, a drip campaign and they follow up with them and hopefully convert them. Okay. And have you shifted your focus on Zillow since they've become a mortgage company? I have 100% shifted. Yes. Yeah. You know, and it could just be me. But I saw the quality of the contact they were sending over and getting diminished a little bit when that's started coming about. And since then, we've seen articles, right? A lot of the co-marketing leads are going to the realtors and they're already proofed by Zillow mortgage. Which, you know, makes me hesitant to even want to do co-marketing on Zillow. Just because I, you know, I don't know. It's just one of the things where you do want to feed the machine that's going to run against you. And I just don't see it. Do you still have any investment in Zillow whether it's co-marketing or otherwise? No, not right now. Okay. All right. I'm just going to, my notes here from the last conversation. So you're totally off of Zillow. But that kept you afloat for quite a while. But now you've shifted your online lead gen investment to a couple other sources, right? Yeah. Yeah. We've shifted it over. So we're going to be doing lending tree. We're working on integrations with bank rate, third wallet, hopefully coming up soon. And then some online, other ones for VA. And stuff like that because we all the basins are going to send you a go. But yeah, we're not going to give up consumer directs. And what it comes down to is, you know, you meet with a lot of these agents in the area of top agents. And you come to find out that what they're doing is consumer directs themselves, right? They're going to Zillow. They're going to redpin. They're going to all these different places to buy lead. And so, and they want you to come in and go brand them. Their business isn't as organic as they used to be. So, then I have to think of my head. Is it worth it to buy leads for them with them, right? No market. We're just buying myself and basically run my own consumer directs. So, you know, I want to keep the cost of a client acquisition to about a thousand bucks or less, hopefully. And then when you start looking at the real estate business, it's two or three thousand or more. It almost doesn't make sense for the partners of agents because the cost is more than if I did it myself. So, yeah, I mean, we're going to keep ramping up our consumer direct model. It's different for everyone. I think it works well for us because we're running a low margin. And so, we're making a lot less per loan than normal, you know, traditional loan officers and some of our competitors. So, for us, it's about volume. Not about, you know, making the most on each deal. So, we have to do a lot more volume. But that helps with consumer directs because our conversions a lot higher. Well, let's talk about this. You mentioned volume. And so, I don't want to overlook the importance of having the right systems and infrastructure in place when you're talking about consumer direct online lead. And what, for those listening that are considering this, considering ad spend, right, whether it's a Facebook ad or whether it's buying from a portal, like you mentioned. Yeah. What are the requirements that people should have in place to even consider that? Yeah, it's funny because I hear a lot of other brokers saying the same thing. I'm going to go buy leads. I'm going to do this. The main thing that gets set up first is the system to handle it, right? Because otherwise, when I first started doing the low lead, I didn't have the system. And I lost a lot of money that I probably could have made. And I would have been had a system to funnel it better. So, the first thing I would say is before you even start buying leads, is you have a CRM with automation. As soon as a contact comes in, and you just send an automated text to them, automated email, maybe even a voicemail. And you got to keep track of that conversion. Because when you start buying leads from all these different sources, you got to figure out which ones has that as conversion, thinking that more money into it, right? So, it's letting trees outperforming. Nerdwall is bank rate. Well, I'm going to put more money into that. But yeah, automation is key. And then as you ramp it up, you got to have a CRM that you can distribute leads to your team. Because there's no way for me to sit there and handle 500,000 leads a month, not possible. So, I need to be able to hand it off to a team that I know that can trust that we'll call right then. But yeah, the main thing is the system to CRM is the most important thing. And so, you're focused on purchase leads then for buying these leads, right? Yeah, I'm focused on purchase leads. You know, the reason why I did a lot of refinance leads lots of months and it was great. I think we lost 15 loans in the last two weeks. But it doesn't add value to the roaders. And as rates go up, there's going to be less refinances. It's going to be a purchase heavy market. And so, we got to start building that pipeline up and purchase leads. And with that too, we want to be able to give back to the roaders. You know, that we're prospecting the big accounts, hey, you know, we can work for you two or three buyers a month that are pre-approved and adding that value because the, you know, the agent, the value to the agent is going to be more than if we partner with them and become marketer anyway that if we can give them two or three buyers a month. So, yeah, my goal is to ramp up those purchase leads, get them pre-approved and then hand them off to our roaders. How do you decide to, the distribution strategy with your realtors and those leads, if that makes sense to the question? Yeah. Yeah. Our distribution strategy is, first, we want to make sure they're pre-approved. We're not handing out leads to our agents. They, a lot of these teams already have the leads that they're buying and they got to have their call through, you know, their team following them. We really want to hand them something that's ready to go. We created a website. It's an agent referral platform. And so, what happens is we put three agents per county on there. Right now, we have three in San Diego, three in Orange County, and three in Riverside. And basically, what we do is we're talking to a client, we're figuring out, you know, more about them, who they're going to use for their realtor. And if they're not using anyone yet, we send them a link to that URL. And we say, hey, you know, read the top, our top three agents that we work with on here. One of them is one of the biggest agents in San Diego. You know, they're going to have a lot more tools to help you, you know, off-market properties, things like that. Just, just higher touch points. And a lot of times, the client is going to look for their access with their finances. So, they're looking, they're opening the referrals from us. Because they now came to us first. They trust us. We're handling their finances. Who do we recommend that's big for them? So, then we can push them to that URL. And they can pick between the realtor's on there. And they don't have to open anyone on there. But they can. And they can click the work with them. And it should send automated text right to the agents. They hate you. You got a new lead from the Bianchi team. You know, claim it now. Call them. Wow. That's interesting. Are you able to share one of those URLs, the website? Oh, almost. Yeah. We work. It's a. It's a work in progress. It's a work in progress. Yeah. Yeah. So. I love the new one's built. Yeah. The new one's built. But we still got to put some of the new pictures on there. It's all by that. And so. I'm going to send you there now. It's a bunch of random pictures and random people. No, that's okay. Maybe we can get a look back on this one. It's one that's already for prime time. Yeah. But again, how did you choose those three agents to go on those. One of the websites. Yeah. I mean, they come down to who do we want to partner with. And who's in them? You know, one thing has to be. They have to be good with idea. That's the most important thing, right? This is Alpha client. The main goal is to help the client get them into a house and. And provide them with that. That's that support. And so. That's the main criteria. The ones that are on there are. People that we're working with. If it's, you know, one of them's Dan beer. And then you go. And then. And you know, you close your inner transactions last year. Or they could bring a 14. But he's got a team of, you know, 20 people. So we know that the client is going to get the service they deserve by going there. And so that's good for us. Good for the client. And also, you know, it helps with our relationship with Dan beer too. Or whatever. Where we have on there. Because we're now giving them a lot of value. Yeah. So I'm glad I asked you that very intentionally. Obviously to explain how you select the three agents that go on there. It sounds like you've already had some previous engagement with them. You've got a relationship. They, they likely have already sent you business, right? Yeah, they, they've likely sent us business or you've worked with them before or. I mean, we, we do have people on there that we've never worked with before. That wanted to be on the program. And that's great because it's an opportunity for us to give them a client. Perform on closing that client and show what we can offer. And then try to earn the rest of the business. All right, so that's interesting. It's people that you've not worked with before. How does that come to play are some of those agents that are on your target list. We're reaching out to them saying, Hey, we've got this, you know, system set up and we're generating leads. And we've identified you as a top realtor blah, blah, blah, blah. Tell me how that look kind of unfolds. Yeah, I mean, I mean, if I was a realtor and I'm sitting there and I'm trying to think of the realtor mindset, you know, you got 25 lenders hitting you up all day. You know, let's get coffee. Let's get this. Let's get that. Well, my email to them is going to be, Hey, I know you get hit up by a lot of lenders. I got something that they can offer you and I'm hired to give you. Do you want to be on this platform? You know, there's no requirement for it. We just put you on it. You can start receiving stuff from us. Once we show you value, we sit down with us and have a coffee. And every time I say yes, right? Because it's a free buyer. Why wouldn't they do it? And they're going to and we're going to end up performing and they're going to end up sitting down with us having meetings. And so it's kind of our way of showing value of bread. Yeah, so by when you say showing value, that means giving them a buyer that's ready to go. Yeah, give them a buyer that's ready to go. You know, and it's free money to them that they don't have to pay anything to market back why or anything. No, yeah, I just want to clarify. But the agents that you're choosing to go after with that proposal, they're obviously successful agents high performing agents. Right? Yeah, I mean, we have, we have on that spectrum, we have everything, right? We have people that are doing 10 deals a year up to people like the end that are doing 314 a year. So it just it depends. But yeah, I mean, I think that people are going to get a better experience from a top producing agent because they have a team set up and they can handle the client better. The systems are better. Yeah, but you said it's three agents per city, right? Yeah, three agents per city. So do you also have any discussion with them around or is there is there any discussion around quid pro quo? I mean, hey, I'm going to float you with some leads. And if you're not giving a love back from them, do you then have a little chat or is that kind of set up up front or what? No, we don't do that. It's just, you know, why are you laughing at me, man? How are we recording? No. I'm telling you, it's all straight up here, truth, truth in mortgage marketing. That's what I'm saying. So, you know, if they're closing the client and their conversion size, that's the most important thing to us because that's how we're going to get the loan and we're going to get them into escrow, right? I mean, obviously, it makes sense. We want business to return. I mean, if we're working with you, we're doing a good job and you're getting our buyers. It would only make sense to partner with us and to give us your business to return because we're going to do the same thing for your clients. Yeah, one would hope, you know, it's the right agent who gets that. Oh my gosh, the Bianchi team has flowed us like six loans in the last, you know, 45 days. You know, hey guys, we're going to send the Bianchi team some business, right? I mean, that's exactly. Yeah, it's like, I can't remember the term for it, but you know, when you do something for someone else, they'd like to do something in return for you. Risk of vacation. Yep. Comes out a great book called Influence by Dr. Robert Sheldini. Yeah, so listeners, hey, we'll put that in the show notes too. Why not add you a link there? Okay, very, very cool. The website idea is very interesting, very interesting, because now I'm also thinking about it from the standpoint of, you know, how realtors would play that three card approach. Well, you're kind of feeding it back to them now, right? You're playing the three agent approach. Right. And, you know, a lot of, you know, you talk to a lot of rollers and like, oh, yeah, you know, I prefer my buyer to beat my top two lenders and my top three lenders. They can choose who they want. Well, you know, we're going to refer them to our top three rollers and they can choose who they want to. And, you know, it's the same thing, you know, London, London people do the same thing. And so it's quick in. And in a lot of these companies, they have, you know, Bella home or quick and quick in. But they're giving, you know, they're, they're pre-proof buyers out the rollers too. They're asking for a referral fee and return. We're not asking for any return. And so we, we just wanted to be easy for the client where they can come get pre-proof, get connected to the top roller or, you know, road every work with easily. And just get into the home with, you know, with ease. So that's really the goal. Very interesting, very interesting. Is this the new wave of modern mortgage market? Yeah. I mean, I guess so. I think that consumer behaviors are changing, you know. A lot of them are going online. A lot of them are, are starting their through, you know, Zillow or Redfin or wherever they're going. And we need to change our, our structure of our business to handle that, right? Things can't be done the same way they've always been done when things are changing. So I try to, I try to develop that, that online stream. Like, also keep the, keep the basics because those are always going to be there. And so when you can leverage one for the other and kind of, you know, implement both, then you just have a winning strategy. Yeah, so that's very smart. Obviously you said, keep the basis because they're always going to be there. And I, you know, so I still, it's funny. This whole lead conversation. And, and we did touch on this earlier. But I also want to make it clear for the listeners is that what, what, what you've done first, Blake is first you built the foundation of the basics. I'm wondering, let me just put it this way candidly. Would you suggest somebody go about it the opposite way and just try to go straight up by and leads, you know, which is now part of your business? Yeah, I would. You know, if I were, if I were to do this three years ago, I probably would have taken all my money into my leads. If I had the system there in the race and everything that the consumer wants, right? The consumer, the consumer that's going online and looking for guidance, but they're also looking sometimes for the lowest rate. That's their only goal. And so when you have all these things in place to give that person what they want, I would have just went straight for that. And, you know, it's funny because the owner of loan factory who's in San Jose is all consumer direct. But that's how he started. He built a good system, a good website that does the rate quotes, that's everything automatically. And then he, he does all radio and newspaper. He doesn't buy leads online and it works for his market. It's a niche market and it works for him. And, you know, he, I think he's got 200 loans in the pipeline right now with no realtors. So I think it's totally possible to build a huge business and be a top performer without, without working with realtors. But just, you got to, you got to choose which route you want to go consumer direct or realtor or draw and do what I'm doing, which is a hybrid model. You can do both. It's just a little bit more complicated. So. Yeah. And also the reality of my listeners, right? You're referencing your broker there that's obviously it takes some pretty significant budget to do that as well. For 200 loans, I think he's probably got a pretty sizable call center staff or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. He's got, I wanted to say he's got 10 people under him, somebody like that in San Jose and Orange County. But he's, surprisingly, his ad spend is a lot less than buying leads. He does the Vietnamese radio station and Vietnamese newspaper. And he's been doing it for a couple of years now. And he's just adding last year, he did like 150 million like that. And this year he's already done more than that. So I think consumer direct works. You just got to find your niche, what you're trying to do. And then, you know, do it smart. Have you tried to run Facebook ads? I've tried to do some Facebook ads. And I find the quality of the lead to be a lot lower than like lending tree or, you know, Zillow, somebody that, because a lot of the funnels are just Facebook questions. You were just clicking. You have to get a lot more leads to equal, you know, an application or a closing versus buying from online. So they work. I've also tried radio too. And radio didn't bring, I got zero results from radio. I got no calls, no websites, like nothing. So I don't know if it was the ad I was running or if it's my market and my niche was just too big. Like, you know, I was just doing the country station here in San Diego, broadcasting to everyone. There was no real point to it. So we had the low rate. And they didn't work. So they worked for him in San Jose and Orange County and Texas and they're doing, you know, under loans a month. And, but I didn't work for me. So I'm back to lead buying and I think that that works best. Yeah, well, it's interesting. If it really comes down to something I was writing about this morning is, you know, the big question of, well, what works in marketing, right? And the real answer is everything works, but not everything works equally well all the time or for every one. Yeah, no, totally true. Very interesting. All right. So let's see here. You got the website. You got the realtors. How would you, let's say this? Okay. So my listeners are primarily relationship focused. Use the air quotes traditional, if you will, right? Much like you built your business at the start, real to referral and that kind of stuff. What advice would you have for somebody? Because I think a lot, there's this conversation every one of us are gets. They understand they want to go consumer direct and diversify and not be rely on agents 100%. And flip the value prop, which is what you've done. So looking back to you on how you get started and now you've got, you know, listeners that are in the same boat, a couple of quick tips for them to, if they're considering looking at investing in ads, leads, Ben, where, how would you direct them to get started? Yeah, so first I would say get the system in place, handle it, right? Get your CRM in place, contact the company you want to buy leads from, figure out what they're integrated with. There's a lot of, a lot of them are integrated with certain CRM. So you got to have whatever one they all connect you. Big, big, big purple dot is a, is a CRM that provides lending to your bank rate, all those things below. But I would say get that set up first. If you're, if you're a big, real or business person, then you, you know, that also requires being out in the field a lot. They're not going to be available to call these leads. So you have to have the ones that you hire to be a, you know, answer the phones and be in the office to do this. It's too hard to try to do both, right? So even though I have real to business, I'm in my office sitting on my desk 90% of the time. I don't get up. And so I'm able to take the leads and stuff. But they got to have the system and they got to have someone to take the leads and really have what the client's looking for. You got to have, you know, the, the infrastructure, you got to have the, you know, the process is going to be good for them. It's got to be something that they want to do, easy for them, digital mortgage, you know. And then you also have the price for them. No, that's a great point. You just rose there. It's good. The process, something they want, they want to do with digital mortgage. Assume most of these people because they're inquiring online at bank rate and all that. They probably already have that expectation of a good user experience with a digital loan app. Yeah, they think they do. And you know, they do. They want to get approved. They want to move forward. They're not sure where to go. But it's our job to show them, hey, here's our experience versus, you know, the five other people are going to call you, you know. And it really, it comes down to ease, you know, cooking alone is the number one lender in the country. And it's not because they have the best pricing. It's because they have a, you know, click button, get mortgage and clients want the, the ease, you know. So if you can give them that, that comfort of, you know, hey, it's a digital mortgage process. We're going to, you know, less documentation. We'll try to verify your income and assets for you. We'll do everything quickly for you. And also here's the rate we're going to give you. They want to, want to move forward and apply with you, you know, if they want to hear that it's going to be easy or, you know, streamlined for them. Not the old school way of, you know, bring me all your documentation of person. We'll scan it all in. Let me write down your whole triangle paper for you. They want the new buyers want to ease, which goes back to a point you mentioned earlier. A very critical part of your sales process is that initial phone consultation. Will you position yourself as a trusted advisor, right? Yeah. You're not a phone call guy. You're not a rape jockey. You're a trusted advisor that wants to understand their needs, wants dreams, all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You want to understand, you know, because I feel like a lot of the call center reps that you see at different lenders. They don't, they don't go into depth about what you're trying to do, right? How long are you living the house? You know, what's your goal? Did you know if you do it this way? You can save some money, you know, so you're always trying to figure out ways to advise them and help them. And another thing is, you know, when we, when we do quote rate, we're not like, Hey, what are you getting from other lenders? Tell us, you know, we'll beat it all. You know, it's, Hey, here's our rate. Here's the best we can do. If that's something that you think is valuable, you know, if we're providing you as valuable enough, you want to work with us. We'd love to get that locked in for you to help you out. But we don't want to register ourselves. We're talking bad about other lenders or trying to do that sales pitch. Because I think that's like, you know, it's like a used our salesperson. We don't want to be that we want to be helpful and help them save as much money as we can. How long is your initial conversation off of that lead when it comes in? You know, you want it to be, you want to, you only have a couple of seconds to throw them a trust usually in the beginning. Do you want to, you know, connect with them locally, you know, tell them, you know, I had one yesterday. She lives right down the street for me. So I tried to connect with her on that stuff, the weather, whatever, you know, what we're trying to do for you. My initial conversations are only about five, five minutes long. I don't sit on that for an hour with them because, you know, they, you know, I don't think it's a zero. I wouldn't want to be on the phone for an hour with someone that I applied, you know, online for. I want to see quick and easy and text me or email me all the info you just told me, which is what we try to do. So it's really just, you know, the initial five minute conversation was hit it off and then let me send you a email with recap. Do you, with, with these leads, would you consider that a relationship or transactional style of business relationship? You know, the goal is to help them as much as we can provide a lot of value. And our goal is to, you know, one thing, there's a, there's a more external right, you get them in the lead, you incubate them, you convert them, you do the transaction for them. And then that's where it stops for a lot of people. And then they don't know where the client is at. They go refinance with someone else, you know, it's transactional. Let's get more in, let's get more in, but you can make, you can increase your business 30% or more. If you just keep track of those people, I manage or mortgage for them. Right now I'm refinancing 75% of my pipeline from last year. So, you know, that's business I wouldn't have if I didn't fall up with them or didn't make it a good experience. So, hey, going back to what you're saying, I think it's super important to manage those clients. Yeah, so what tools do you do, do you use to manage that stay top of mind, all that? Yeah, so we have a couple of things we use. E-property watch is one of them. E-property watch will send them a report once a month, but the current value of the property, things have sold in their area, the current low balance. Just gives them a lot of tools. The second thing is our CRM will do automation to them. The first month after closing, asking for reviews, seeing how things are going. Three months, you know, maintenance checklist. Here's what we think you should do to your home. Keep it up to date. Six months, watch for a referral from them. Hey, we have, you know, hope everything's going good. Do you have anyone we can help? And then we always do a yearly checkup too. Just to say, hey, I'm going to check them. Let's see how you're doing. So, I think those things, you know, the whole goal is to stay in front of them, right? After closing. How do we stay in front of them? It doesn't, it can be something just like a, you know, hey, how are you? We want to keep it going as far as long as we can. Because they're going to refinance when rates drop or they're going to have a friend or family member wants to buy. You can have all the automation set up to do for you. You know, you don't have to be thinking about, oh, today I got to email these 35s. Have it all automated. You don't have to do anything. Do you do any kind of like, you know, annual mortgage reviews or do you plan to, you know what I mean? To get that kind of personal call every six months or whatever? Yeah, we do, we do a personal call on the, on the yearly check up. But that's like our mortgage or annual mortgage review. Just a touch base, see where they're at. Let them know, hey, here's for rates or at. You know, you're still, you still have a really good rate or hey, the market drops. And, you know, maybe we should look into refinancing you and things like that. So, yeah, we do our yearly check up with these leads that are purchase leads from like these sources you mentioned. Do you, as you compare those leads, the interactions with them, the loyalty, the, the, the double apping you factor, right? Do you notice any difference in those leads as compared to the referrals from real estate agents that comes? He were loyalty. Uh-huh. Yeah, it's different, right? Because, you know, like the last time I had a client that was close to close the day that backed out a lot of second. And, and you just don't understand it. And, and the reason is because there's no, you know, you have met them in person. They didn't come from someone you trust. It's not a regular referral. So, I would say the close ratio is a lot lower on online leads versus realtor referrals, right? When they come from a realtor, you know, 90% time they're using you that they're going with. It's a trusted transaction. When they come through online, it's, it's a lot less. Yeah. You know, you do a lot, a lot higher quantity of, you know, you throw 15 hours in the pipeline and maybe 10 of them close. Versus either 15 of the roller ones in there, you know, 14 or 13 of them will close. Right, right. Interesting. And I'm glad you mentioned that and articulated that and that brought it up obviously for a very specific reason for those listening. That might be, you know, kind of feel drawn towards the online lead gen thing. And look, like we said earlier, not everything is right for everybody. So, you've got to get clear on what kind of business you want to have as well. So, and there will be people who succeed, have succeeded and will continue to succeed, even without ever paying for a lead. Right. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. I mean, the top, you know, the top one of the strengths that you go, they's all, all real and a referral. So, you know, the, some markets, you know, people that are, they're consumer direct up all they do and they're number one and then there's people that are a referral. So, you know, I don't know if, if I was 100% referral, my business would be down or up. You know, it's getting harder for rollers too, right? It's getting harder for them. And so, you know, if their business is going down, you know, putting all my eggs in a roller basket is not going to be that good. They are going up. So, I'm trying to supplement it by doing consumer direct because that's the next control. Yeah. No, man, it makes, it makes a lot of sense too. And, you know, I evaluate, if I was getting back into the business today, I would want to diversify to a degree as well. I'd want that, like foundation of a referral business that I know, you know, sustains or how, how can it better, better weather the storm of markets. Yeah. You know, it goes up and down. When you've got that, when you've got that strong referral base, right, that seems to be a little bit more smoothed out than being directly affected by the market. Things like that, but both make sense. Yeah. I mean, let's face it because look at the behavior of people moving online and stuff. Yeah. That's awesome, man. It's been a great education in those who want to get started with online lead gen, whatever that looks like for them. Thank you for sharing kind of the truth, man, right? And I appreciate you just, you know, being willing to take whatever questions come at you. So, I think it's been a nice, honest for the listeners. Yeah, for those who want to reach out to you, where do you recommend they go? Check you out, man. Yeah, you can go. You know, you can Instagram me. It's the Bianchi team. That's my Instagram. That's my Facebook handle as well. You know, you can call me as well. You can find my phone number or something, but I'm fine with that and trying to help as many people as we can. That's awesome, man. All right. We'll put links in the show notes and to your Instagram profile to your webpage as well. I'll get that from you. So, anybody wants to continue the conversation? Can reach out. Mr. Blake. Bianchi, legend in the making. I appreciate you making it. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for having me. You bet. And listeners, as always, we appreciate you tuning in and listening. If you like this episode, you know what to do. Leave us a little love on the inner webs. And, you know, that means a review if you like it. All right. So, thank you again. We'll see you on the next one. Bye for now, people. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in mortgage marketing. Get more free training and resources. At MortgageMarketingInstitute.com. 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