Ep. 139 - My Industry Syndicate Interview!

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. I'm brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey, what's up, listeners? Jeff Zimper, your humble host here at the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast coming at you from the, what do they call this city? The city of light, the most entertaining city in the world, the, I don't know, the city of Las Vegas. Let's just call it that, shall we? Because that's where I am. That's where I live right now in my new, my bunker here at home in the Batcave. And we're getting the home studio set up, the microphones back up, the lights are back up, and I just need to get my backdrop. So I don't have that blank wall anymore. Anyway, why am I talking about this? Well, I'm talking about this because I want to let you guys know what's going on behind the scenes here, right? There's been a bit of chaos and we're back on a regular schedule. We've got guests already reserved and booked on the calendar. So look for more of those to come. And as always, we want to acknowledge you, our listeners, and let you know that we appreciate you listening. And so I want to make sure we give a shout out to you, one of our podcast listeners. This is Vinny G from two years ago, amazing information and insight. Vinny says he's new to the mortgage industry. And it helps to be able to find out strategies and marketing that different elbows are using. These podcasts are great with all the valuable information that can be applied to your mortgage career. Keep it going. Awesome. Vinny G. Appreciate you. We're going to keep it going. Vinny, if you want your podcast swag box, you know what to do. Hit me up on the Facebook's DM me, send me your t-shirt size, and you're mailing address so we can reach out for swag box. And Vinny, you are listening and want the same. You know what to do. Leave us a review. And then let me know. Hit me up on the podcast on the Facebook's. All right. Let's get into, by the way, as you know, this show is always sponsored by the mortgage marketing dot pro membership, which is your place to go if you want maximum agent referrals in minimum time and learn how to become a modern mortgage originator, put up an eight minute video there. You can learn more about it, mortgage marketing dot pro. This week, our special guest, I'm doing something a little bit different. As you guys may or may not know, you've heard me talk about in the past, the industry syndicate. And what the industry syndicate is, is a single stop one source destination of most of the top shows in real estate and mortgage. So we're talking about podcasts, flash briefings, video shows, and there's some great info. And in there for you, there's great content for you to borrow and share with agents, maybe invite them to listen into one of the real estate related shows, whatever the case is. I think there's great opportunity for you guys to gather, gain more information over there at the industry syndicate. By the way, link in the show notes, but the website is industry syndicate dot com. And I'm interviewed on this episode by one of the co founders of the industry syndicate, Dustin Brown, who's also a real estate agent in Salt Lake City, a well-known speaker. He's been speaking on the in-min stages and really just doing incredible things when it comes to helping real estate agents and loan offices for that matter. Get into digital marketing and have a modern marketing approach that gets results. And so he's consulting people on video audio and all kinds of great things. But we finally get together here on the industry syndicate and Dustin interviews me for a change and asks me some questions that I thought would be relevant to share with you guys as loyal podcast listeners. I think it gets some nuggets and value out of the conversation he and I have. So I hope you enjoyed this week's episode and make sure you check out industry syndicate for more details there for now. Let's get into this week's show. What is up everybody? Welcome to industry connected episode number 20. I am stoked today because we have one of our industry syndicate hosts Jeff Zimper from Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast and I'm going to give him some accolades because he just reached an incredible milestone with that. But guys, this show, if you're new to industry connected, this show is for agents and loan officers. It's called industry connected because we're trying to bridge both sides of the industry at a crucial time. There's so many outside forces attacking us, attacking the way we do things, attacking the need for us at all. And it's important that we have conversations together and so industry connected. And we have two goals, remove heads from asses. We're going to talk about honest stuff, you know, where it might be a little bit unpleasant, but we're going to have honest adult conversations and we want you to remove your heads from your ass and connect both sides of the industry. Real quick, I have to give a shout out to agentology. This episode is brought to you by agentology. They are one of my favorite vendors in the real estate industry. They are here for agents and loan officers. If you're running any kind of Facebook ads or Zillow leads, getting any kind of leads, these guys have an office in San Diego with human beings that 24, 7, 365, they respond to your leads instantly. Speed to lead is absolutely key. I'm sure you've heard it many times, but these guys do it 24, 7, 365. So Christmas morning, Thanksgiving evening, three in the morning, they respond. A human being makes a phone call, sends a text, sends an email, a combination of them, and follows up for you and converts your leads for you. I would not be running any kind of lead gen without them, so agentology, go check them out and they are giving a special discount of 50% off the first month to listeners of industry connected. Thank you, agentology. That's fantastic. Just go to agentology.com slash industry connected. Make sure you use the link, otherwise they don't know you came from the show and they can't give you the discount. So thank you, agentology. All right, guys, Jeff Zimper, you are someone who, I mean, you're a podcasting legend. You have hundreds of episodes or at least 800. You're in the triple digits and first off, welcome to industry connected and congratulations on just hitting the incredible milestone of 200,000 downloads for your show. Thank you very much, man. I'm thrilled to be here. Long time come in. Long time listener. First time attendee. First time interviewee, I guess, right? Yeah. So I might say that. Hey, by the way, I want to share with you as well. Did you know what today is? Monday, a busy Monday. It's informational podcast day. Is it really? Yeah. I'll look at that. Right? Are we doing this on the perfect day or what? Absolutely. And it's crazy. So I'm leaving for New York in the morning. So I did my massive agent podcast. I recorded that episode a couple hours ago. Now, I'm doing this one, which will come out. If you're watching this, it's Friday. So international podcast day. I didn't know that. Well, I just thought I'd like open up with that. Anyway, no, it's going to be your man. I'm a fan. I feel this is a long time coming for us to kind of team up and do this together. So I'm like, I'm ready. I got my power drink ready to go. I'm rocking. Jeez, I didn't get my power drink. I should probably have water. My sponsor is, you know, power drink. Yes. I want Starbucks to sponsor me or something like that. Yeah, so guys, if you do not know Jeff, so his show, Mortgage Marketing Radio, is one of the shows on the industry syndicate, which is real estate's media network. If you are not familiar with the syndicate, go to industry syndicate.com and check out all the shows involved. We have the collection of the best highest rated shows in the mortgage industry, real estate, appraisal, real estate marketing, everything all in one spot. So go check us out. But you are also, you're not just a full time podcaster. You are in the business. You are in the mortgage business, boots on the ground as the national sales trainer and coach for a movement mortgage. Yeah, I am. I've actually been in this industry since 2003 when I started as an originator in Southern California. So, I really bleed loan officers, what I like to say, I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for what both of us do as professionals, real estate agents and mortgage originators. And I think we both need each other greatly to succeed in the current and the coming market. But it's a passion project for me, hosting when I started this four years ago. And I'm just thrilled to continue to be able to serve anyway. I can't. Love it, man. Yeah. And things have changed dramatically. Have a day. Yeah. Facebook did not exist when I started video marketing was not present. It was, you know, the traditional block and tackle boots on and a lot of that stuff still works and works well today. But obviously we've got some additional tools and stuff to help us grow our business. Absolutely. So, your podcast, how many episodes do you have? I think it's like I'm approaching 140 right now. 140. Nice. Yeah. There's some of your, your most listened to episodes like what's been most popular with your audience? Yeah. That's a great question. And so recently, you know, in celebrating the 200,000 downloads, I decided to kind of look back into the vault and see what were the most popular episodes by downloads. And that's an interesting metric when you get into, you know, subscribers downloads, etc. But was the one metric I could actually track. And for me, the top two were both focused on you and I, right? Own Officer Realtor Relationship. For instance, to give you the exact title, number 137 was how to go deep versus wide with real estate agents that featured a top reducing originator, give her a shout out if you don't mind WC cord from Guild Mortgage. She helped 260 families in 2018, 65 million in production. And you know, she's big on going deep with real estate agents in terms of relationship, right? The most popular one was episode 138 and these are both reposted on the page, but that's from my buddy, Buddy Damp, Dominic Dengora, who's got an incredible story about how he went from just 60 loans funded in a given year to 216 loans. Damn. Oh, sorry. Let me say, I was saying you the year to 190, let me say it this way, we went from 60 loans to 236 in record time. How's that? That's crazy. Yeah. We've been a lot of it was from realtor relationships, though, to sure finish that out and that's important. So it's, it's very important for a loan officer, obviously, to get new business coming in the door. I'm a firm believer it should not be your only focus as an L.O. that's insanity, but it's an important one for sure. It's also important for realtors that we have the right partners on the lending side that we can rely on that, you know, and I'm not going to go into co marketing. I personally don't co market with lenders for a bunch of different reasons, but it's important that we have reliable partners that we can trust and that, you know, if we need something quick, we can sue them a text and we know that they're going to take care of it as soon as reasonably possible. So it's an important topic. What, what about the realtor and loan officer relationship? Where should we start? So if you're a loan officer listening, what would be most helpful? Let's see, a brand new in the business or you're just like, I really need to get some more realtor partners. What's the first stop or the first step towards that? That's a great question. And so part of how I answer that is I filter that through like my own experience when I first started, but also now, you know, having interviewed over a hundred of, you know, America's quote top producers, I think the common mistake I see with a lot of loan officers when it comes to working with real estate agents is their own mindset around real estate agents and how they tend to put real estate agents in a box or a bucket and label them as X, Y, or Z. And I'm sure, you know, we could all, you could describe loan officers in a similar way because look at, let's face it, there's some bad people out there, right? Some bad players. Old joke I used to love to tell was there's really only three bad real estate agents in the world. You just move around a hell of a lot, you know, but all right. So yeah, right? Thank you. Yeah. We hear Thursdays and Fridays. But really, it's about mindset because, you know, I'm sure you've heard it. We've all heard it right. Realtor's aren't loyal. Realtor's are this. Realtor's are that. Never answer their damn phones. Real hell. Which is true. It's going to say there's some evidence that might support that. But, um, totally, but the point being is, look, you need my, the way I try and coach and, you know, loan officers is, it's a partnership, right? And yes, there's some real estate agents that probably aren't right for you to partner with. But that would be true in any business whatsoever. So don't get all caught up in realtor's or this or that. Get caught up in. How do you a find the good ones? Be partner with them and have something good to say so that you can attract people to work with you. That's where I start with all that. Sure. Oh, what, what would you say a loan officer needs to, like some basic concepts that they, like the mindset they need to have going into it? Because honestly, the vast majority of L.O.s that reach out to me, the foundation's wrong. They're, they're coming at it completely wrong. They're looking for me to give them something. Yeah. And that's flawed right from the get. Yeah. Exactly. And that's, that's a mistake. If you're, if you're looking to a real estate agent as a place to get, that's wrong. Um, you know, I've heard this thing said a while back that too many loan officers, the reason why they are struggling with, with real estate agents is because they're focused on conversion over connection. And you need to focus on connection. It's a frigging relationship, right? And you, you can use that old metaphor to like dating and, you know, think about like when you first started to date your now spouse or whatever, I mean, did you just show up and just, you know, and I mean, just jump right to, you know, the consummation of the relationship. No, you didn't, right? There was a dating. There was a courting. There was a getting to know each other. An alignment process. The same thing happens, has to happen here with real estate agents. You take this outside of any other industry that partner with other professionals, right? Financial advisors who have people that they partner with insurance and attorneys and things like that. Right? It's, it's all about, how can I bring value to the, I don't know why in this space that too many loan officers show up with their handout, maybe because that's how they get fed, you know, I, it seems to me like they're just, whoever's teaching them, whoever's mentoring them is showing them something that worked 20 or 30 years ago or not mentoring them. Yeah. Well, actually you raised a good point because when I first started a countrywide many years ago, I can remember that glorious day where I got my stack of business cards and all right, here you go. Go get yourself some realtor relationships, you know? Yeah. And you go out, then you go out at trying to sell or convince and let me tell you about the company and, right? Yeah. But it's the wrong approach. It's the, and so I believe in like reverse prospecting and attracting agents and all that to you. But the first point is like, yeah, have the right mindset, look to that person. It's an individual. It's a human being. So just start with, how can I connect with this person and learn about them? Step one. Yeah. I couldn't agree with that more that the, the lenders that I work with, we have a relationship that supersedes all else, you know? I don't worry about who's giving referrals to, to who, how often, if at all, first off, do we get along? We get along, long term, and are they going to get shit done? Are they going to be competent so that I could send my, my father to them for a mortgage? You know what I mean? Right. Relationship comes before referral. Absolutely. You brought up a good thing there. Can I, am I confident to send my father to them? It's about trust. And like you're trying to supersede, you're trying to short circuit trust and trust doesn't happen like that. Exactly. Trust. Trust happens over time. What are some tips for, for an L.O. to build trust with a realtor? Yeah. And again, I think it's like trying to give you a visual, right? I don't know depending on the age group, you know, to Sherlock Holmes, put the investigator cap on, whatever. I mean, I'm old enough to remember Colombo. So I'm not, I know the name, I think of a, I think it's a Salami company to be honest with you. Maybe that's Columbus. Anyway, so the point is, and be curious number one, and be an investigator. So my approach to it, before I ever try and make a call to a real estate agent is, I want to learn what I can about that person to have some context to talk about that real estate agent. So, and I haven't done this on you yet, but I mean, I know you're in Salt Lake. You've got the, the website, was it Search Salt Lake? Yeah. Yeah. So you've got a website you've obviously invested in becoming known as a brand in Salt Lake. I'd probably dig into, not only your website and learn about that, but I'd like to find out what, you know, personally about you, I think you have, what, is it two kids? Yeah. Okay. So you've got two kids, and I recently saw you vacation somewhere, I forget where it was, because it was a while back. But anyway, I would do some recon and just, you know, but I'd have some context and some basis of entry point of conversation. If you are enough of a real estate agent, where that's worthy of my time, if you know what I mean. To the point, yeah. I'm not. But, but if I were, see, you've already, I mean, and doing that kind of research takes a couple minutes. Yeah. It really does. Now ideally, you've been following somebody long enough that you know a little bit more than just like how many kids or do you live, you know, that, but you've already done more than 90% of lenders that reach out. Yeah. Well, Caribbean lazy. Oh, geez. Yeah. Yeah. And it's so frustrating because it's not that I would never work with another lender, but I would never work with a lender that approaches people like that, like that because we're philosophically not aligned. Well, and I know the classic thing is like, you know, the lender calls on Monday or Tuesday or whatever. Hey, how was your weekend? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. You got any deal buyers you met over the weekend and. Yeah. Give, give. Yeah. Right. So, you know, I think that's the kind of relationship of any kind of relationship there or value. Like, like, if I got that, we all get those calls, like somebody, I forget you have vendor calls and pitches, whatever product, whatever, and we get it on social media, right? The person who friends you on LinkedIn, that's thing, you know, you get a pitch, right? Oh, my God. Is that just a complete slap in the face of, brood, right? Oh, it's painful, man. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. And I used to do that because I didn't know better. Yeah. I thought that, but that's the example of an LL. That's what's happening over the phone. Yes. It's not now. It's not on social media. It's the phone ringing. Hey, what's up, Dustin? This is Jeff from ABC Mortgage, man. Hey, listen, I really just wanted to call introduce myself to you. We are a big lender in town. We got a lot of great rates and we close on time. So I'd love to meet with you for coffee and tell you a little bit more about what we do. Right. Like, well, you know, I know your reaction already. Right. Thanks. Cool. Cool, man. That's the best of luck, but I don't have the bandwidth, which is the nice way of saying, I don't have time. I don't have time. You know what's missing from that? And this is what gets me passionate here. What's missing from that? Like we just said, there's no reason why I should talk with you any, you've not given me any reason to be interested in you whatsoever because you've clearly displayed. I am just a friggin' number to you. Yeah. However, haven't you? And it's a sales call. Right. If we roll back that scene, though, that said, hey, what's up, Dustin? This is Jeff from ABC Mortgage. And, you know, I got to tell you, I've been following you for some time. And obviously, you're one of the more successful agents in town. As a matter of fact, I'm really liking your search Salt Lake website. You must have put a lot of time and effort into that. Yeah, I have. Is it? Already, I'm liking it. Yeah. Tell me more, Mr. Collar. Exactly. Yeah. And then just like, carry it on from there, man. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And it's human nature that when you're complemented in a genuine way, and that, you know, that was genuine. That that helps somebody break down that that guard they have up. Because look, and it's getting worse every single day, especially on the phone. When the phone rings, I'm ready to fight. I'm like, who the hell are you and why are you bugging me? Why are you interrupting me? Yeah. It's like when your doorbell rings, like it used to be like, oh, who's coming to see us? And now it's like, everyone's diving behind the couch. Like, what the hell? Like somebody called the cops. It's just so weird. And so we're like ready to fight. That's what you're walking into. And then if you just move forward with a sales pitch within an agent who's been around more than six months, that's the thing, too, is like when you're a brand new agent, you probably don't have relationships with funders yet. So you are receptive at that point. But you want to go after agents that are doing business. So you can't just do that. So I was going to ask this rhetorically, but I'm actually asking you, because I think it'd be a good turn to the conversation. Why should I as an established agent, regardless of my production, but I have established relationships with funders who I trust, I do business with, and it's a nice well-oiled machine. Why should I look elsewhere? Why should I let another lender in the door? Why should they even consider that? You may not. Seriously, if you've already got your bench of your top one or two, maybe three lenders, there isn't a lot of reason, unless they've got a very compelling, attractive thing for you, which in the case of a real estate agent, when that situation is in play, oftentimes that's money. When they look at, they start looking at lenders as sources of money, like help me co-pay zelo leads and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, that drives me nuts, too. Well, it's a real thing. It is. That's why it drives me nuts. It's a certain level of extortion going on there that it happens at bigger teams and bigger offices. And look, and by the way, just because for those listening, hey, well, how do you handle that, right? I think it's a case by case basis, because I think there are some cases where it does make sense, but there has to be a lot of, it's funny, I was talking to somebody earlier about this today, exact same thing, where there's got to be a certain amount of expectation back return on that relationship, return on investment, or in the case of running Facebook ads, for example, there's return on ad spend. Well, if you're asking me to contribute a certain amount of money to your marketing, zelo or whatever, great. We need to have some parameter set about what the return is going to be in advance. What are the expectations? What are the milestones? What can I look for? Look for actual leads that are going to set my way. What happens when you fall off and you don't or you're sending them here instead of there? It's got to be set up before you're just ready to stroke that check, you know? It should be. Yeah. Absolutely. I agree. And I don't know, man, when the only time that I've ever been receptive to another lender calling me, because they've all done it wrong, is when they say, hey, they're very personable, hey, you know, I heard about you from so and so, you came highly recommended. I saw your website, I saw some videos, whatever. And you know, read your reviews. You're one of the good guys. So I actually have a buyer who's pre-qualified and ready to go. Do you want them? Yeah. Yeah. I do. He's going to say no to that. Right. So that's why I teach you've got to, you've got to become, you have to control your own lead generation as a loan officer so you can then bring clients. That's how you get an agent's attention. And then all the stuff that you were going to say in your sales pitch call, show it during the transaction and then they're going to stick around. And the two lenders that have ever done that with me, I've stuck around with because they backed it up. They showed me it was a great, you know, great process. And so then I was like, you're in. Like, I can trust you moving forward, but that never would have happened if it didn't open the door with, here's a buyer to work with. Do you find anything else valuable from a lender besides here's a buyer? Oh, yeah. Just, I mean, it's like when rates are brought up, don't bring up rates because everyone can match everybody for the most part. It's a greatest rates in town. It's cool. So does everyone else? And they're going to change tomorrow and, you know, it's so stupid. But just how fast can you get stuff done? How efficient are you? So that's what I was going to get. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's all, like, given to me, like, that's, that's the standard. Well, it's a suit. Right. It should be. It's assumed until you get to experience if it's real or not. Exactly. Right. Like, go stump back in the day. You used to have this thing. He talked about does the external perception match the internal reality? Yes. I was like, that's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah. Right. So, and that's why when people are like, oh, you know, our company's been around this long and our rates are so great and we have this, you know, two, three, one, eight, six, by-down program or whatever, it's just noise to me. It's the algorithm by-down is what it is. Yeah. It's just noise. It's like cool. It's just noise because it's not relevant to how they can specifically help you, which is where I always go back to. That's what you need to be leading with is first that personal connection that separates you. You got to have a good talk track and script and all that. I mean, dude, I used to do, like, everything I could to get in front of it. And some of the work, here's my, here's what I always say to people, like, hey, does cold polling work, does door knocking work, does this work? Does it work? Yes. Yes. But at various levels for different people depending on your area. Yeah. There's a lot of variables to that. A lot of variables. Yeah. A lot of variables. It's going to work for you the way you're doing it. I used to send a million dollar bills in the mail to realtors. I was prospecting with a letter that said something like, you know, I forget, but if something like, you know, let me help you earn your next million commissions or something like that, you know. Did that work pretty well? I did. I got a point. It was creative and different. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's attention getting. Right. And I bet some people kept that and put it on their bulletin boards and stuff. Get this, even one better. So if it was a really good agent, what I did was two weeks later, send them the same letter crumpled up as if it was thrown away in the trash. And then, you know, had a, like, a hand scribbled note, it said, hey, I know this wound up in your trash, but then the call comes. Right. And then like, oh, shit. You're the guy who sent me the frigging crumbled up letter. Yeah. Yeah. What's up? That, I love that lesson that you just taught too. So a very similar concept of persistence and people do respect it in the right context as long as you're not an annoying douche. But the way you did that was fantastic. Like with some leads, they'll fill out the lead form, you know, like F off or Mickey Mouse or dip shit or something. And so I call them. I'm like, hey, it's Mr. Dip shit. You know, you're on our website. And I just totally play with it. I've actually had a few people laugh and they're like, wow, you're, you know, you'd be kind of fun to work with. Right. And I've met with them and they become clients. Only one person's actually become a client, but I've definitely had positive conversations with a bunch of leads that put bogus information. So to a certain degree, people respect that persistence. If you make light of it, I love that. I love that tactical idea of the million dollar bill and the crumpled up thing is like, hey, just probably end up in your trash. Well, and think about it. What's today's version of that, right? I mean, we've got a smartphone. We've got video texting, right? We've got Facebook messenger. We've got so many different tools. We've bomb on me. So many different tools to show up differently uniquely with somebody today. There's no excuse, I think, for making a cold call to a real estate agent anymore. Right. Unless you want to get your number blocked. Yeah, I mean, why would you do that? There's no reason. No, no, look, if you... So I try to stay as reasonable about the cold calling things I can because I know a lot of people do it and they have success with it. Cool. I hate doing it. So for me, that's out. But if you're going to do it right off the bat, you can't be taking 30 seconds to introduce yourself. You have to jump into something engaging or attention getting or valuable, something that isn't just the typical sales call or else you're done. Right. Okay, well, now that you've said that, so assuming, let's... You've better have something really good to say in those first 30 seconds to hook them. Assuming you don't and they agree to meet with you, my concern is, why is that agent agreeing to meet with me? Oh, yes. Exactly. No? Yes. If I haven't... If I've just showed up like every other L.O. and, hey, man, you know, I saw you on Facebook and really love to tell you about how we were great and whatever the usual B.S. script is. Yeah. Yeah, man, sure. I'd be happy to drive a car. It's like, really? I'm concerned now that you don't push back and say, yeah, you know what, I'm really super busy. I was testing you and you failed. Right. Exactly. Right. That's what you should say. The little officer should say. Yeah. That's funny. No, that's a great point, though, like if you're doing a shit job and you put no effort into it, no personalization and you're just mailing it in and you do get appointments, is that a good thing? No. Are those the agents you really want to work with? I don't know. Yeah, because back to doing your due diligence, so getting sources of Asian production is also smart. You know, depending where you are in the country, there's a variety of sources. There's like my MTA reports, there's your title rap, core logic, whatever. Know somebody at the MLS, right? Hook up a dust in and bribe them to give you the MLS reports of the top agents in your zip code, whatever. Yes. I accept those often. Yeah. And do some smart targeting, you know what I mean? So that's what I have to say about that. Yeah. And I've seen loan officers kill it by just doing great lunch and learns, like just doing great educational lunch and learns and then doing another one and then another one. So that agents are like, yes, I want more of that, so I obviously need to partner with this person. There's so many things you can do. I happen to know a thing or two about hosting successful lunch and learns. Nice. Let's jump into it. I know if you're aware of it, but I've been doing it for 10 years. It was not. Yeah, it's how I built my business. So literally, when I started as a loan officer right, I actually long story, you know, back in the day, I used to work for Tony Robbins. That's how I first got my start, so to speak. And then got off the road, right? And I was living in San Diego and I was like, man, I need to like get a real job, right? Because I can't do this traveling and living in a different city every two months, which I did for a while. And that was a great training route. But then relationship, get married, whatever. And I'm like, hmm, realtor loan officer, which one do I want to be? Because I get spoken to a lot of those groups, you know? And for whatever reason, I decided loan officer. And long and short of it was like my first year sucked, man, I mean, I had to take a heat lock out on my house. I got a baby at home, wife's not working. Things are tight, you know, and I'm borrowing money just because I'm not making any money. And I'm like, doing the usual, we just talked about, I'm doorknock and I'm cold calling. I'm chasing, chasing, chasing. And it worked, you know, sporadically. But then it got really serious and I'm like, holy crap, man. I just like, okay, I know it's a, here's the thing I knew. I was for a short time a working in a subprime shop handling internet leads for a lender, right? Did that racket? Wasn't my style. And I started reading these stories about people that, you know, now are kind of infamous in the industry. Tim Brahim and others who had built these wildly successful referral based mortgage practices that were largely referral based from realtors. So they built these amazing relationships. And what I saw was these loan officers who are 10 plus years in the business were just like, never had to market, never had to prospect because they had built these relationships up. And they had this referral machine going and I'm like, that's the business I want. And I knew it was a long road to get there because that's, you know, that's not a quick hit. Anyways, so I started figuring that out and then I started realizing, man, if I could just get in front of more agents in less time, I would find the agents that I want to partner with. So lunch and learns. Yeah. Lunch and learns came into play and I started doing that and, you know, perfected it now and help. That's what I teach other L is how to do basically. Do you have a couple of quick tips? I mean, that's a whole other show topic. Yeah, it is. Sure. But what are some, some quick tips for anyone who's already doing lunch and learns? How can they make them better? Hmm. Good question. Several different key ways. Number one, you know, one of the common questions I get is from, from loan officers, how do I get more butts in the seats, right? I think there's a couple of things that factor into the show rate on your classes. Number one is your topic. I'm not a big believer in teaching mortgage 101 to real estate agents, FHA financing, friggin, all that stuff. Do I, does it have its place? Yes. But as far as a consistent, are you going to hang your hat on your success with those topics? No. It's not sexy. It's not sexy. Exactly. And let's face it, we are in a sales and marketing world and we are in a noisy world. We need to rise above the noise. So the types of classes that I'm teaching L.O.'s, how to, how to put on our personal branding for real estate agents, an introduction to Facebook Live, getting started with video marketing, Instagram, YouTube, all the stuff you want to learn, right? Exactly. And most agents aren't getting that from their broker. They're not getting it, right? Maybe if you have a good advantage where you're maybe at the XP or something like that, you've got some great trainers around you and things like that, right? That's awesome, but most are hungry for it. And here's the thing, most loan officers aren't even teaching that. They aren't even thinking of it. We can get into why that is, but that's step one is your topic. Step two is, I believe in what I call power partnering. So that's teaming up with your affiliates, your title, your espoir, your home warranty, inspection, you know, in your state that may vary a little bit, attorneys, right? Why? Because they've got relationships you don't. And they already trust them, they don't trust you. But if you align with them and you get them the co-sponsor, help you promote whatever, right? They're going to get butts in the seats that you wouldn't get there otherwise. That's step two. Step three is like your process, how you invite and prospect and promote. I call it shock and awe marketing. And so what I mean by that is you've really got to carpet bomb the friggin city, the town, the zip code, and get after it in a big way early when you're first starting. So that means on the phone, that means videos on Facebook, tagging agents, inviting. That means doing, putting, creating an ad on Facebook perhaps, you don't always have to. Anyways, is this helpful where we're going with this? Oh, completely. Yeah. What I'm noticing there is you're focused on the promotion of the event, which is everything you have to get them there first. Right. Exactly. That's all it's about. Yeah. And obviously, this is a given, just like you with promising, hey, it's going to be a great experience. And all, you know, we were efficient with our processes and everything you should be. Like that's a given. Your event should deliver what you promised and it should be great, of course. But if you don't promote it, if you don't have the right headline, if it's not sexy, well, I mean, it's when you have a crap turn out, look, this comes back to the, you know, the common, common frustration I have with loan offers are sometimes it's like the laziness or the thinking they can friggin just send emails and fill a room. You know, guys, sometimes you can. Maybe you can. I think that depends on the level of engagement you've already got with your email list, but the reality is most of you need to hit, and this is where people get too lazy in today's tech world. They're trying to automate everything. And they're taking away this here, the face to face, the communication, which by the way, is why lunch and learns works so well at accelerating trust and credibility because it's face to face. And that's where all that happens faster, you know, that's why at the end of the class is if you've delivered value, if you've done a decent job, and first of all, let me just get this out of the way. The topic I presented to you, right, branding in Facebook and all that. The biggest thing I hear from LOs, well, I don't, I'm not an expert on that. I don't feel comfortable presenting it. And I'm like, I get it. You don't have to be. You're just the messenger agents don't really care about you. They just want the info. Thank you very much. Yeah. Right? But or because someone in or bring someone in or you can do that and there you go. You got the power partnering thing. Eventually, you know, you should start presenting this summer on your own. More importantly, you need to learn this for yourself too, if you're going to be a modern originator. But the point is, like, listen, I've seen this happen. Like it blows my mind. How often a loan officer, and listen, I'm doing this every week, so I see it a lot. A loan officer will learn a topic by watching a video a few times, reading a transcript, practice it twice, and then they get up and deliver it and read some slides, like I'm personal branding or Facebook, whatever. And they had a feedback format at the end, and it's got some strategic questions. And at the end, agents come up like, oh, that was awesome, man. Yeah, I would definitely love to talk to you about partnering together. I mean, it happens all the time. Yeah. Yeah. That, see, you don't need to be the world's foremost expert on the topic. You just need to be, you just need to deliver something that that person didn't know yet in a way that relates to them. They're so grateful for the info. They're pulling for you. They're not expecting you to be as entertaining as Elvis returned from the grave, you know, they just want the info and the fact that you are delivering the info makes you look, you are not the average loan officer at the end of that class. You're not. You're somebody completely different. Yes. I don't know this from speaking on stages. The guy or gal with the microphone has all the power. Sure. It just gives you a certain level of credibility in the eyes of those listening. Yeah. It's crazy because I always feel like such a joker. I'm like, why are these people listening to me? But then I have to remember, like whenever I've gone to conferences or seminars or whatever, you do look at the person on stage with respect and you're like, okay, they must have a certain level of success, credibility, all that stuff. So that's working to your advantage just by doing a lunch and learn. Yep. And so there's that element of it, but just think about the other element of it as well. Like we kind of talked about, right, is you scale your reach, you reach more agents and less time. You have that bigger face-to-face personal impact. And here's the other cool thing. You're reversing the process. You're not chasing agents. And you mentioned doing it so you don't just do one lunch and learn, you do it every single month. Like on the same day, the third Thursday of every month, and you create a thing and a brand. So now, like, you know, Dustin, who's a lender in Salt Lake, is now known as the guy who hosts, bam, right, the agent marketing, whatever. Right. Exactly. You've got this funnel that you keep putting agents through over and over and over again. And the consistency of it helps build up your credibility instead of just, you happen to do a class on Facebook ads, but it's like, oh, you did one on this and then a more advanced one on this. And then you did an Instagram and then you did, like, then you did an email marketing. You did whatever, like all of that makes you become the guy, the gal. And so I'm going off on this now because my energy drinks really kick it in, but it's taking in nice. So here's what I say when I open this up, right, for your loan officers listening, is so welcome, everybody, right? And the reason why we host these classes is number one is a thank you to give back for those agents in the room who we already work with, we appreciate your partnership. And secondly, is for those of you who don't yet know us, we wanted to just demonstrate for you one of the ways we have value to our partners is by first giving you something of value. That means if you learn something here today that helps you grow your business, learn something you didn't know before. Would that be useful to you? Yeah. So everybody raised their hands. Cool. We don't expect to ask for any relationship or business until we've added value to you first. Boom. I mean, that's the positioning, you know, and it sets the expectation from the start. So then they're not put off or surprised when you ask, when you do ask, and you will ask. Sure. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Cool. No, I love it. I appreciate it. I'm glad we did because that's all good stuff. Yeah. Cool. I take us off track. I'm sorry. That's me and my show is if you ever, you know, you've heard my other show. It's nothing but one big squirrel chase. You should call it squirrel chasers. Squirrel. It's my next show. Let me just spill the beans. I might have to edit that part out. Squirrel chasing. Squirrel chasers. Yeah. Good. Jeff, I appreciate your time. I know you're busy. Real quick, even though you gave a bunch of these. To end the show, we want to give this week's marketing quick tip. What specific little thing can an agent or an L.O. go and post or go do an app that they should download, whatever, to help them? Sure. Yeah. I was thinking about a lot of different options for that, but the one that I think I'll just go with is an app called Slide Broadcast. You know that one? Is that the one that drops voicemails? Yeah. Yeah. This case for this. We've been having a massive success with loan officers doing this with their past client database. Is Slide Broadcast is a tool that you can upload your past clients telephone numbers to that and drop a single mass broadcast to them. And lately, this has been working really well around the reduction in interest rates that's happening in the news. So what does that sound like? It sounds like, you know, this would be a sample script and obviously it wouldn't be personalized, right? It would be, hey, what's up? This is Jeff from ABC Mortgage. I wanted to reach out to you guys because you're one of our VIP clients and you may have seen in the news lately, that rates are down. And the good news is we might be able to help you get in a better position on your mortgage, reduce your rates, save you some money, maybe get cash out, not sure what your needs are, but would love to do a free mortgage review for you anytime. Call us back at, blah, blah, blah, blah, boom. So and look at just this morning, I talked to a gal who said she sent that out to 100 people, she's got eight files she's reviewing. And literally it happened within minutes of that broadcast going out. That's awesome. Yeah. So that's tip of the day. Slide broadcast. You could use that to promote your lunch and learn with Realtors. Interesting. Interesting. Yes. Lots of uses for that for sure. Absolutely. Jeff, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. And guys, thank you so much for watching industry connected episode 20. We will be back next week with another episode live video on the industry syndicate Facebook page and also as a podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and coming soon in the app store and Google play the industry syndicate app, which is the the first podcasting app made for real estate mortgage pros by real estate mortgage pros where you can listen to and discover new real estate mortgage podcasts, click play, lock your screen, you know, and listen, it's going to be the podcast player for our industry and that'll be coming within the next week. So stay tuned. Guys, thank you so much. Enjoy the weekend. Take care. 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. 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