Ep. 136 - 3 Words to Focus on to Win More Deals

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. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in Mortgage Marketing. Hey, what's up listeners, Jeff Zimfer, your humble host of the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. Hey, I am back. And why do I say that? It's not like I haven't done an episode. Here's this week's episode, right? But here's what I mean. I wanted to share with you just a quick little insight into the crazy schedule I've had lately in my life, which has made it extra challenging to stay really engaged and connected with you. You know that we bought a house here in Vegas about a month ago and have been spent the last month pretty much rehabbing it. And we have affectionately referred to it as the money pit. If you've seen that movie, you know what I'm talking about, or War of the Roses, both excellent movies you guys should see. So anyway, here's the thing, right? We just moved in on Labor Day weekend. And as you would expect with any move in, there's always contingencies you didn't factor in. It's a 20-year-old house. So, hey, we don't have plumbing yet in our master bedroom, and then we need to have like, you know, a hole punched in the wall to do some plumbing retrofits. We got issues with some things with the pool, you know, I mean, just things on and on. Welcome back to home ownership, right? It is what it is. But taking it on and loving it. Plus, I've been really challenged personally, work-wise lately in terms of available band with there. You guys may or may not know. I am a sales coach at Movement Mortgage. And so, those are my full-time activities and, you know, dedication to that. And if anybody ever has questions about what it's like to work at Movement Mortgage to be a loan officer, you can always reach out to me. If you have any questions about anything, you can always email me podcast at mortgagingmarkeradyo.com or hit me up on Facebook. So I just wanted to let you guys know where I've been personally, and look, we all have various struggles in our lives. I know it's, I feel the pressure to kind of be online consistently, as I'm sure you guys can relate to that to some degree. And so it hasn't been easy, and I just want to let you know I'm aware of it. But look out, baby, because I'm back at my home office, getting set up here and ready to rock and roll. So what we're doing this week is, every Tuesday, I typically go live on our page, two pages, the Mortgage Marketing Institute page on Facebook, and our private group just for our podcast listeners, that's you, the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast on Facebook. If you haven't been over to either of those, just come over to the Mortgage to Facebook, right? Mortgage Marketing Institute or Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. Type in, join us, like us, and that's where you're going to get access to these lives. Now, this is a replay of that live, and we are going to get back to our regular schedule of awesome special guests coming back up. I've got people that helped me schedule my podcast guests now, and so we're going to diversify as well and bring you more, not only top producing mortgage originators and stay on the thread of our content there, bringing you what's really working in today's market, but we're also going to diversify and bring you some unique and different special guests. People have given me great feedback on some previous guests we've had that are speakers, authors, trainers, coaches, and people like that. So if it's appropriate for the audience for the group, then we're going to bring those to you. So with that said, let me give you a quick, another shout out to one of our podcast listeners. This is from all the way back in July of 2018. Let's see, it's HSC baseball four, right? That's his handle on leaving this review, he says, best mortgage podcast period. I want to start by saying thank you to the mortgage market radio for all the useful info from the top producers that come on the show. I've enabled incorporate many ideas from top producers into my own arsenal, major kudos. Major kudos, dear. I hope I'm not repeating these reviews. I usually try and dig pretty deep. We've got over 160 of those reviews now. So guys, keep them coming. I appreciate it. That's how we stay up in the rankings on iTunes and other places. And by the way, as a thank you, I'm going to get you a free podcast swag box, t-shirt, sticker, some other stuff that we're putting in the swag boxes that thank you. So if you've left us a review or you're going to leave us a review, hit me up on Facebook, send me your mailing address that you did leave a review, and your t-shirt size will send you off some swag. All right. Let's get into this week's episode. Today I'm talking about the three C's that we need to focus on as we head into 2020. Three C words are at play and they are customer, clarity, and communication. I'm going to unpack on the replay of this Facebook live on how all three of these play into your business. And so this is just something that I think is relevant to keep top of mind for you when you're evaluating your business plan, your strategy, coming up against potential disruptors and competitors in the market, focusing on, obviously you've guys have heard it before, quote, focus on the customer, but I'm also talking about focusing on your referral partners as well. Bottom line is this, most of us don't spend enough time thinking about the mindset of our clients and referral partners. Number two, clarity. Right? Clarity is power. I'm going to talk a little bit about what can you eliminate? What can we say better? How can you build smarter instructions and interactions in process with your clients, right? Communication, right? How you say what you say is everything and some other cool nuggets in there. So guys, hope you're like this week's episode and look for some more great guests to becoming real soon. I appreciate you and let's get into this week's show. So I want to start off by just saying I apologize. I have been off the grid for a little bit. Multiple things happening as, you know, life can sometimes be like a series of waves. I remember Lou Holtz at a quote once that said, life is like a series of waves. If one's not hitting you now, one's on its way. So I just recently got through a wave that was a multiple things was this house. It was stuff related to work and so forth. So many of you know that, you know, I'm a national sales coach and trainer with movement mortgage. And what I wanted to share with you is what we're seeing across the country, you know, and working with the law officers that we do there and convey and share this kind of message with you today. As always, I'm trying to tell you the truth about what's working today in today's market. So let's get into it. All right. I want to talk about the three C words that you need to be focused on in your business. You know, in the world we live in today, there's, there's lots of impending, depending on how you look at it, you could call them threats, disruptors, noise, competition, right? Choices for the consumer and expectations that are oftentimes being set for the consumer and what it should be like to purchase and transact a home, buying a home, getting a financing and all that kind of stuff. So today, I want to talk about are the three C words, okay? And they are customer clarity and communication and I'm going to briefly break all of these down real quickly for you, okay? So the first one in the three customer is where the focus needs to be. Now before you two now and say, you know what, hey, I've heard this before, all customer first and all that kind of just, I would venture to say that most of you, myself included, have not spent a lot of time thinking about the mindset of your clients, customers, your referral partners, right? Anybody who you consider a customer, anybody who's transacting to do business with you, so this could be online, right? Social media, this could be in person, face to face, this could be your clients when you talk to them on the phone, referral partners, customer, right? It's the first of the three words that we've got to focus on if we intend to win and survive and thrive coming through the rest of this year and well into next year as these other players come in and compete for our customers' attention. Because make no mistake about it guys, that's what the game is today, first and foremost, the game is getting customer attention. So if you don't spend lots of time working on thinking through the mindset of your clients and referral partners, right, those who engage with you, then how do you know if you're designing an experience that they want, okay? And I want you to start by asking yourself and asking your clients and referral partners questions, right? Describe for me, I'm going to give you a couple of different questions, use them in the order that you want, but in one case you could be described for me, right? Your ideal experience in obtaining a mortgage. Or if they've got one in the past, would you do me a favor and take a moment to describe for me what that experience was like? Now that's an interesting question because what that will give you, if they've gotten a mortgage before, they've gone through the home buying process before, what that will give you is context into what they liked and perhaps reveal some things that they didn't like that they felt were frustrated. So there'll be some lessons in there, right? But also, when thinking about creating or designing a customer experience or referral partner experience, you've got to look at who your competition is. Look at how high is the bar being set? Who are you being measured against? And well, let's face it, right? One of the obvious example that people tend to use a lot is Amazon, right? Amazon has set the bar high for customer experience, generally speaking. Millions of customers buying and returning millions of things every single day, every single month, right? And most people would rank the customer experience in Amazon pretty high. Why? Because it's efficient. It's typically pain less or less painful than buying from another vendor online. It's transparent. It's clear, it's easy, it's familiar, it's laid out, right? People understand it, people trust it, okay? So I want you to start considering and evaluating your customer experience, right? What's it like? What's it like from the first moment of somebody engages with you, whether it's online, whether it's through a phone call, whether it's face to face, I don't care what it is. You've got to really consciously architect and think about the customer experience and your referral partner experience so you can deliver what it is they want. What's up? What's up, cowboy Craig Johnson? I know you're designing your customer experience to rock. So look at a hotel, right? If you go to the Ritz Carlton, what does somebody want at the Ritz Carlton, right? They want pampering, right? They want everything handled for them, okay? They want to be free from having to deal with the usual frustrations of their world. So what do your people want when they come to you? What do your clients want? When they're obtaining a mortgage, when they're learning about their financing options? And how can you deliver an experience for them that not only meets their expectation, but exceeds them? Oftentimes, it comes back to asking questions, like I said, if you weren't here in the beginning, Craig, I know you joined us late, those of you watching, you got to ask your customer's experience. Have you ever gotten a mortgage before, right? Great. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience? What was that like for you? Right? And then they're going to reveal all these things to you, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Make notes, take learnings, ask people that multiple times, you'll start to see patterns and then you can also ask your clients and referral partners. If you could architect the ideal mortgage experience, the ideal process in obtaining financing for this home. Tell me some of the things you would want to absolutely have as a must. What is your communication preferences, weekly, channel, do you prefer text over email and so forth? And what you need to do is build an attorney, build a case. Build a case for your customer, your client, a referral partner so you can have the data to architect that ideal solution for them. Notice patterns. Notice when you start to hear the same thing, two, three, four times in a row, those are key indicators. But how are you going to know if you ask the question, right? How are you going to know and let's just spend some time thinking about it, okay? And obviously you've got more than one customer, more than one client, right? You've got the husband and wife. You've got the realtor, you've got other people involved in the transaction, your underwriter, your processor. Bottom line is this is you 100% control the experience, your clients and your referral partners have. Are you taking ownership of that and designing the ideal experience for them? So that's number one of the three C words, customer, number two, clarity, right? Think about this, how can you do more with less? How can you provide a clearer path forward, a clearer path to choosing you as the mortgage professional of choice with less? What I mean by that, can you build a more intelligent, more intuitive path or process? Do you have an easy user-friendly online app? I don't know. Do you have a wonderful intake process that clearly articulates to your clients what the process is going to be like? You think about a captain. So this is an old metaphor from years ago by Joe Stump who originally made this popular where Joe had some awesome scripting around, you are the captain of the ship as the mortgage loan professional. And you've got a bunch of passengers on your plane, I said ship, I mean plane, you're the captain of your plane, right? And what you need to do is inform your guests, right? Much like they do before you take off, people let you know, okay, the type of aircraft you're on, right? We've got a completely full flight today, here's what you can expect for today, our time of flight duration is going to be, right? You're captain and your co-pilot are, your staff and support people are, right, Billy and Wendy, et cetera, et cetera, right? You're getting a clear path of what to expect, right? Instructions, right, are you sitting in an exit route? This is what you need to know, right, should we lose oxygen? This is what's going to happen, right, et cetera, et cetera, right? So how can you create a path of clarity and minimize the fluff, minimize the noise, right? Because too many people got too much information being thrown at people with no context around it and how to use it, okay? So think about how you can design clarity in the process, because it goes back to, right, starting with the client and the customer, clarity, who the heck doesn't want clarity? How many people want more confusion? Do you want more confusion? Anybody raising your hands? I'm walking around a restaurant, want to fill your coffee cup with confusion? No, I don't think so, right? I'll take a heavy dose of clarity, please, right? So provide clarity for both your clients and your referral partners on what your process is. That's why you've got to start with number one, consciously thinking about it and asking your consumers. All right, let's move on to step three, communication. How you say what you say is everything, right? How you say what you say is everything. You ever heard the old saying that it's not what you say, it's how you're saying it, that makes me feel the certain way? Mm-hmm. Yeah, see, words have meanings, tones have meanings. Sequence in order has meanings, right? How about telling stories? Where can you integrate more stories at the start of your customer journey, start of your customer process, right? Can you articulate a story of somebody you've had as a client who's been on a similar journey as the client you're dealing with right now, the first time home buyer process? Oh, you know what? That's so fantastic. I love working with first-time home buyers. As a matter of fact, we had a recent story of the Smith family who came to us as first time home buyers as well, and they had this concern in that, and they had some questions around here, and what we're able to do for them is this, right? Guys, makes, does this make sense here? Okay. So with communication, sometimes again, less is more, brevity is power, right? And selling with a story really helps make it real for people. So, how do you deliver what you say, scripting, the law of the dress rehearsal, right? Let's bring scripting back, as a matter of fact, on the podcast just last week, I interviewed Chris Smith, co-founder of Curator, who's got a brand new book out, right? What to say and when to say it, we'll put only in the show notes for that. But Chris is excellent at crafting a digital online process, right? A consumer experience process that's clear, that's friction-free, that provides a journey for people, but also he's excellent at asking, knowing what to say when, because the worst time to figure out what you need to say is when you need to say it. That's not the time to figure out, you know, quick split second, oh, they said this, like I wrote, I said, come up with that, no, crafted out, structured, like that, the airline, right? Airplane metaphor, I talked about knowing your destination and your journey, and you are the captain, hey, we may run into some turbulence along the way, but just remember, I am your captain, and I'll, at times, request that everybody remain in their seats so that I can get us to our destination safely, right? So that's an example of scripting, example of scripting might be when you get on the phone with somebody and they say, hey, what's your rate? You say, well, that's a great question, Mr. Mrs. Custimer, it's obviously an important part of your overall decision, but would you mind if I take a moment and just ask you a couple of questions so I can accurately provide a rate quote for you? Absolutely. Great, are you interested in a 30 year fix, a five year interest only, an FHA, right? Are you interested in, you start asking them questions, controlling the conversation, scripting. Todd Duncan calls it the law of the dress rehearsal, right? You've got to practice your craft if you're going to be good, okay? Johnson, what do you say? You got a long, long-winded thing there, Mr. Johnson, we all need to remember as no matter what's going on at any industry that's always a pivot, and the question becomes, are you or are you going to not pivot before everyone else does? Play offense, not defense. That's right. You've got to always got to be prepared, be on your game, be aware, right? And always be working on your skills, yourself, right? Jim Rohn says, right, formal education will make you a living, self-education, will make you a fortune. Are you working on yourself? Are you so caught up in your business that you're not working on yourself? Yes, we've got to work on our business, but don't forget to work on yourself. So what are we talking about here today, right? We're talking about the three C words, customer, right? Spend time thinking about the mindset of your customers and your referral partners, right? I use customers and clients interchangeably, right? Get in their head. And what are their expectations? What are they comparing you against? How would you design and create the ultimate experience for them, which leads to the second C word, which is clarity, right? Thinking about clarity, removing the fluff, brevity, and being very clarifying, very clear with your instructions on what it's like to work with you, what the process is going to be, how's it going to be different? And then lastly, the final C word is communication, which the key here is how you say what you say. Right? Most people just show up and throw up. Most people just wing it. Most people just kind of do what they've been doing for the last 20, 30 years and look at. I'm guilty as this as well. This life is a constant like process of fine refinement and improvement, right? And the work on yourself is never ultimately done, right? We're always a work in progress. So the number one sin here is to get complacent, to get casual, right? Jim Ron, again, casualness leads to casualties. Do not take your customer communication, your clarity, your process, your experience. Do not take that lightly. You are being evaluated. Today, especially if you're working with first-time home buyers, millennials, they are double-appling you more than anybody else ever in history. So you better have your A game on, right? And just know that what you're up against is this. People that you're trying to get attention from clients, referral partners, they're paying less attention than ever before, okay? These tools that we have Facebook, live, Twitter, Instagram, digital tools and all that, they only take you so far, right? What you need is a strong customer client referral partner focus. You need absolute clarity on what people want and you need to be able to articulate how you fulfill that and you need expert communication skills to help your clients and your referral partners see themselves being well served by choosing you. That makes sense? Those are the three C's, people. Just wanted to bring the truth here to you today. Hope you enjoyed it. Love to get your comments or feedback. Next topic you want to talk about here on the podcast. Look for more cool things coming your way by way of the podcast. It's been a little tough with the move and all the rehab and all that kind of stuff going on, taken off the game for a while, behind the eight ball, complete honesty in terms of lining up podcast guests, but we're getting back on track and more good content coming for you. But hope you're enjoying these sessions as well, these live sessions. So if you're not yet a member of our mortgage marketing radio podcast community on Facebook, make sure you get in there and you can always email me podcast at mortgagemarketingradio.com. Mr. Craig Johnson, thanks for being here riding along with me. And remember, those are the three C's to look at as we head into 2020. We need to get there now, not later. Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this one. Peace out. See you on the next one. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. 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