Ep. 140 - Featured PRO Members of the Month Funds 200+ Loans

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, Lister, what's up? It is Jeff Zimper. Welcome to this edition of the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast coming at you live from Las Vegas, Nevada. Hey, if you're out here for a conference, let me know hook. Let's hook up. Let's connect. Let's say hello. Okay. So as always, I want to give a shout out to you, our podcast listeners wouldn't be doing this. If it wasn't for you, appreciate all the positive feedback and leaving us a review. This week our review we're recognizing to get podcasts, swag box, t-shirt and all kinds of other cool stuff is Kevin in looks like Deheed, Kevin in Delaware. Kevin says super awesome. I remember years ago having to drive to and pay for seminars that would come near my home or office to learn what top producers are doing, what's changing in the industry and to find out about new products or programs to help loan officers to do business and manage their time. To have all of these podcasts ready to go in my phone and have all of this fantasy content is really amazing. I don't know if he's when he said fantasy content, if he meant fantastic content, it could be a little typo there. But either way, Kevin, we appreciate you leaving the reviews so you know what to do, hit me up, DM me on the Facebooks and let me know your mailing address and t-shirt size. If you're listening, we got to get your podcast t-shirt and swag box. So that's what we're going to do there. And as always, folks, this episode is brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing.pro members. If you want to become a modern originator, learn how to take your business to the next level, learn how to do video, YouTube, Facebook ads, social media, right, at a track consumer direct business and follow the most proven, predictable path for you to get in front of real estate agent and get referrals, go check out the Mortgage Marketing.pro membership. And so that brings us into this week, my special guests, as a matter of fact, Jill and Rob, they are members of the Mortgage Marketing.pro membership. And Jill is recognized as our member of the month because she is such an encourager. Whenever in our private Facebook group, she welcomes people, she high fives them virtually. She's got the best emojis go in and she just, right, she's a great person to encourage you, support, contribute, provide values and ideas so she's completely transparent and sharing what who or her and Rob are doing in her business. So as always, I take a member of the month every month and make sure that we take a time to acknowledge him and all the great things they're doing. Now, just so happens to be that she and her husband, Rob, are our guests of the podcast on this particular episode. And what we're doing is unpacking their business. So Rob's been in the Mortgage Business for 23 years and they're doing a lot of things really, really well. They're up in Michigan, just off of Lake Michigan there and a great place beautiful to live, by the way, it looks very attractive with the lake and all the scenes that they're doing. So I'm hoping to make a visit out there soon. But I wanted to bring both Rob and Jill here because their husband, wife, team, they've been working together. Jill came on board as business development marketing, I believe a couple three years ago. And she's really, I think Rob would agree, taken their real to relationship business to the next level with what she's doing with classes, what she's doing with highlighting what she calls hometown highlights, her blog, highlighting local business owners and happenings in her local area. But get this, right? Rob and his team have 59 deals in the pipeline right now, 59 deals, right? On average, they're closing 200 to 250 units per year, 80% of that is coming from real to relationships. They're also doing some modern mortgage marketing things. So I think you're going to hear a lot about that. You're going to learn how they're leveraging slide broadcasts to create a flood of applications and interest around REFI. We're going to talk about their amazing Facebook business page, which is we are Mish Mortgage and my CH, we are Mish Mortgage. There's going to be links and a show notes to all this to their own website. They're even going to give you access into what's the Realtor Resource Center. So you can see some of the things they're doing and making available for realtors as free downloads and stuff. They have a private Facebook group just for real estate agents. They're very selective about who gets in there. So anyway, guys, this is a great, I think, kind of a clinic. And how to build a highly successful, high volume realtor referral based mortgage business that survives the test of time. They don't deal with the three card business approach. We just really have a nice, you know, deep conversation on how to build out those specific elements of your business when it comes to realtor referrals and so forth. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show Rob and Jill, welcome to the show. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Thanks for being here. It's really an honor because I got a chance to meet you guys in person in Vegas at the Mastermind Summit and that was really great, a fantastic connection. And I think it's a rare thing that, well, one, I mean, you know, I get to meet face-to-face people who listen to the podcast, but also meet face-to-face people that I think, I'm going to say this without sounding too cheesy. I just get to, I got to, you know, the vibe, the sense that I get from you guys is that you're good quality people, you care, and you really want to make a difference in what you do. Yeah, I think, I think so. Yeah. So just want to acknowledge you. To my wife. Yeah. All right. So let's, let's do this for the listeners. Let's kind of give a quick summary of who you guys are, right? So where are you in Michigan? So we're on the, what we call the West Coast or the West Shore of Michigan. So right, right along, if you, anybody from Michigan puts their hand up, right? So we're on the, on the outside, the opposite of the thumb side, right in the middle. Right in the middle of the coast. Oh, okay. So what lake are you on now? Yeah. So we're on Lake Michigan. Okay. All right. So Lake Michigan. And how long have you been in the mortgage business? About 23 years. About 23 years. And you guys, have you always worked together? On and off. I was actually in real estate, and that's what I bring to the team is with our marketing and social community and our realtor partners. I take the experience that I have being a realtor and then work with our realtor partners on things in their own businesses. So we've worked together for the last two years. But I also did some marketing and things like that throughout the years. Plus, she has a little bit of background. She actually started about 23 or four years ago. She actually did some mortgage stuff too. And so she was a teacher and then she's been throughout the years helping with different marketing stuff. But yeah. So most recently, she's come on board with our company and is doing all of our social media marketing kind of community outreach. And we can talk more about. Yeah. Absolutely. It looks like you're doing a great job. All right. So to define the roles, then. I mean, Rob, would you call yourself the originator basically? Yeah. So we have a fairly small branch that's doing a lot of production. So I, in my partner, manage the branch. But we also have our own teams. So I'm a originator and also a branch manager. And on my team, I have Jill, my wife. And I have an LP one that's kind of helping take in the information. Then I help you to setting up for processing. And I have a processor. And then we have our marketing team. We have three people in our marketing team. And they actually help with everybody in the branch. Okay. Got it. And okay. So you've been originating about 23 years or so. Right. A main source of business. Real to referrals is about 80%. Right. Now, if you looked at my pipeline, you'd see a lot of refives. Mainly because we started doing annual reviews and connecting back with our clients. So after 23 years, you've got, I've got, I don't know, I think maybe 4,000 people in my database. And so we have a system set up, which I actually got from you guys or one of your, one of your podcasts calls. Do the annual review calls with the, with the slide broadcast. Working great. And that is been, we, I had to tell Jill last week, okay, we got to shut this off a little bit. So I'm actually in the process of hiring a new team member. So right now we're a little shorthanded. So honestly, we had to shut the valve off a little bit. Right. And by the way, so just give us a little sense for the listeners, right? So the slide broadcast is the, where you upload a, a list of phone numbers to this thing called slide broadcast. And you do like a re five message to their voice mail and the phone rings like crazy. So I'm just sure it's like like for you. What, what quantity of calls of that generate because you have a large database. I assume you didn't do it all at once. How did you bring that down? Yeah. So, so there's two pieces to one is just the annual review calls. It's closed in that month over the years. And we actually cut it off. I think, I think three or four years. I don't remember exactly. So we didn't go back 23. Yeah. Just a handful. So just the annual review calls. And obviously here in the business, you knew a year, a year ago, these rates were like high for some, some were low five. So just the annual review calls with those folks is generating tons of re five. So we call just that month. We do the slide broadcast. I was using the hey, they can schedule them on appointments. But a lot of them just that for whatever reason they just called in anyway. So we scrapped that piece of it. Yeah. But so that's one part of it. The other part is we identified who was in a higher higher rates. Over the years. And we basically just put that group in place. And we didn't do a mall. We do. I've got honestly eight pages of people that should be refinancing because they're, you know, 4.75 or higher. And so what we did, we did a slide broadcast with that. And also Jill actually just started calling them. And so just saying, hey, wanted to read that generated a ton of business. Okay. So how on average, how many units are you doing, you know, over the course of, I know it's, it's spiked with the refines and stuff. But generally on average, what do you do? I do anywhere from about 220 to 250 units a year. Okay. So that's a lot. Yeah. I just looked at the numbers. I think 30.5 million in volume and 175 closed deals. So that's great. That's fantastic. I was going to ask you, what do you use for database management or CRM? How do you manage those 4,000 past clients? Yeah. So, excuse me. We have, so we use encompass and then their CRM is mortgage returns. Okay. So that's what we're using. To me, the best CRM is the one that you use and stuff. Rather than having something that was, I'm sure there's more robust platforms out there. But for me, this was, it was easy to, to manage and use. And so that's what we use and it's, and it's actually, you know, 100% right. And all the bells and whistles don't matter if you're not. Right. Right. Okay. That's awesome. So wait, wait, leverage that. And you, you, right before we recorded, you mentioned that there's, how many deals do you have in the pipeline right now? Live active deals? I just counted 59 live active deals. This is just my team. Yeah. We've got, we've got five loan officers and we've, we've got, I don't know, 140 something going, but me, I have 59. Wow. Yeah. So you're a busy guy. Yes. You guys are both busy. All right. So thank you for that setup and, you know, in terms of like just getting an understanding and context of, right, where you're at in the business 10 year and all that kind of jazz. That's awesome. Now let's get to the fun stuff. Or at least for me and Jill. And that's the marketing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's how I found you. It was the, yeah. Yes. Yeah. So about 80% of your business is realtors. And obviously in preparing for this interview and you know, I've talked before is trying to get a trying to get peace together like, you know, some of the, I mean, look, we've got limited time on a podcast, right? So we're looking for the nuggets, the real like leverage moving points. What would be, if most of your business is realtors, what's your main source of activating those relationships? So we do, at least we used to do lunch and learns. Now we're calling them more strategic strategic planning or just courses. And we're using the mortgage marketing pro power points to a great degree. So we're only one class per month, whether it's at a brokerage or we do it off site and bring multiple brokerages together. Today we were just in an office. We really stick with the 80 20 wall where we really don't go into offices unless we're adding value. And some way we're teaching, you know, how to do Facebook or teaching them content marketing something. Today we went in and talked about Michigan mortgage and what we do. I'm very often, but we have such great relationships with all of these brokerages because we've kind of become the place that they call us. One brokerage has us set up for November, October, November and January to do a class. Right. Well, that will have probably 30 to 35 realtors at each of those classes. So we really have been trying to leverage with the classes. And it's the follow up, Jeff. For example, there was one new realtor today. So I will follow up with her. I'll put her in her database. She'll start getting my VIP realtor going to our VIP Facebook page. And I once a week VIP email, which is also value added things for their businesses. So we really have found to leverage using the classes and then follow ups with email or a call and then coffee. And to our office to meet our staff. So they feel comfortable with us, you know, and coffee and everything. And then when we meet with them, we actually kind of interview new realtors. We asked them questions about their business. We don't talk about what we do. We have a consent leads to it. So you have them that it's more word or your strengths, word or your weaknesses. How did you get into the business? What are your goals? What would prohibit you from reaching those goals? How can we fill in those gaps with our graphics design person, our marketing people? We do help you in your business. What do you mean you're not telling them all about Michigan mortgage and how you close on time? No, we wait. We really do. It's funny. You say that because today we actually went in and we said listen, we do the 80, 20 or 90. We've been providing. And so we've been in there four or five times. And then came in, you know, with with with the with the right hook, right? So yes, yes. So we came in today and just said listen, this is the reason that you guys should be using us. And we went through, but it was actually to me is a lot of value. It was all the value ads for that. The app, the new app that we're using to simple Nexus. That's that's amazing. The app, that's really cool. So we've kind of showing them some of the unique stuff that we're doing and some of the things that we're doing for them. So it was actually value added as well. Because more about why they should use us. Well, no, like you said, there's an appropriate time to do that. But I think let's just make it make clear that. That you didn't go there until you'd already established a rapport and value and all that stuff. Yeah, that's great. So so I know you're big with the value out of the classes and pouring into to to the real estate brokerages. Well, I'm just thinking right, I'm always thinking like the listener what some of the questions they might be asking in their head. So that's why I try and like bring those to the surface. Give us a quick kind of like let's just sketch out like how did you how long have you been working with maybe a couple of handful of those brokerages. How did you get in there in the first place? Are you the only lender or is that there that constant noise for other lenders, you know, the stuff we all face. I think we've been doing the lunch and learns for years and years and years where we used to we used to put the PowerPoints together ourself and everything. One of the things that we've been doing a lot of lunch and learns we also have really established these relationships with realtors over the years where we take realtors out for lunch. We have client and realtor appreciation events, we have happy hours. We really people know us in the area and we try to go really deep with those relationships. So we just are in touch with our realtors a lot. So then what makes it easy is when we go into an office today, you know, true, the realtors are like, hey Jill, this realtor over here is new. We got with her and she needs to talk to you. We had a broker last week who we actually just started doing stuff with and they had two new realtors and that we met with that realtor in our office last week to see where what she needed. She's a new realtor. She just called me yesterday and wants to look at financing for herself and then this morning by eight o'clock she had sent over a friend. She was sitting down and talking to people and finding out about them and truly like hearing about them and how can we help you in your life and in your business is our model. And a lot of these places that are calling us, they actually have desk rentals in there. They're just not getting the content or go from the other lenders, the other lenders are so focused on doing loans that they there does not getting anything else from them. So we've been doing we concentrated light light lots of places. We really wanted to get our systems down and we've done that for 20 years. We're really, really good at doing loans obviously. But now we're just getting good at the relationship piece. Yeah. Right. And it helps to have Jill obviously focused on that as well. And so I think Jeff, so this might make it easier for listeners. It helps me when people kind of lit. So once a month, some sort of a class, you know, maybe not in July or December when people are really busier, you know, around here were more seasonal with loans and realtors are too. But once a month, two coffees or lunches a week with either a realtor partner that we've had for a number of time or a new one. A time our board of realtors, a new class comes out. I go through it and I send notes and then I'll reach out to some of those people to sit down and meet. So I have goals each week and each month and each year how many people we want to get in front of. Okay. Oh, really? So you know like how many agents you want to be in front of per year? Yeah. That's really specific. So to me, easily we should be in front of 300 agents to 400. Is that collectively including the classes or is that just the. No, that's with the classes last year. So I think this year, I'll probably bump that up a little bit. We're actually hiring another person to do some of what I do because it's so impactful and has worked so well for us with some of our other loan officers. Well, I see. Yeah, you're equipping other allows to kind of duplicate your model. Yes. Yeah. So basically the position for lack of a better word is almost like a promoter position. So I've been we've been so focused on doing loans. We haven't had that position when Joe came on as like, oh my gosh, this is like opening a whole new door of opportunities to get these deeper relationships with agents. How would you say I know you've been doing lunch and learns for like a long time in your career. But I think if I'm correct, correct me if I'm wrong, that at least as long as we've known each other, maybe you've kind of refined it or stepped it up or made it more of a thing. Yeah, because we don't call them lunch and learns anymore. I mean, the people and the brokerage offices that schedule classes and stuff will contact me now. Can you guys come in and what we've really tried to do Jeff is I'm trying to certify as many of the classes so that the realtors get the credits. Now, it doesn't matter. We still get in, but to me, you know, you see a realtor, if we can get them to see credits or see credit, we like to offer that. I've been taking the transcripts and breaking them down. In fact, I just shared them with Michelle Ado for one of our classes. I shared that with her. She reached out to me and I'm happy to do that. And or every state is different, but we've pretty easy time. We've got two of them certified right now and I have a third one that we're going to send in. Do you think having your classes getting CE approved? Does that impact attendance? I think it. Or is it just more so the panache, the perception? Yeah, I think I might just add legitimacy. You know, and especially for people who are listening who maybe they haven't been in the business two years. Maybe they're new to the business, but to go in and say this offers a CE credit. They're going to look like they know what they're doing more. So I highly suggest taking the time to do that. This is a little plug for you. So over the years. In order to do a lunch and learn, I would have to put the content together. You know, take time away from actually originating to do that. And it was not easy to get really good content. It's helped us tremendously to take your content and we tweak it a little bit to make it kind of our own, which you give. Sure. Yeah. So we can put our app in there and have a link and show them how to use our app. Or we have what we call a realtor resource center on our Michigan mortgage page that has marketing information. Yeah. For the realtor is client information and it has market information. You'll have to check it out on our. I'm looking at it right now. We're going to talk about it. Okay. I have to opt in to get in there though. No, you have to get your email. Okay. I'll put that in. But we don't do anything with it. It doesn't really opt in. We thought about that, but we're not. We did that initially because we were going to try to make it more of an exclusive or at least seemingly more exclusive, but honestly, we don't do anything with it. Yeah. And before I forget to as well, and I don't want to make this all about, you know, being a pro member, but I do want to make sure I acknowledge you in public for everybody else. You are our member of the month for our program. That was really cool. Thank you. And it's in a suit just because you have a great heart. You're, you know, you're a giver and you're an encourager, I guess. And you're always encouraging new members when they come in. So I want to make sure I acknowledge you for that. Well, it's a joy and I hope I hope if anybody has questions, they reach out. That was one of the cool things about seeing you in Las Vegas and getting to know you and Michelle and some other. You know, sometimes you have questions or things you want to run by people and it's nice to have that group. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. We all learn and go together. Okay, cool. All right. So, so let's talk about seeing as we just mentioned it, your realtor resource center. As I'm looking at this, let me just see here. Okay. So we got different categories or topics. What are you trying to do with that? So that's for just realtor. So one of the things that we find when we go in to teach our realtor's classes, you know, we try to teach in the 80, 20 roll. You know, there's a few things that we hammer at them. You know, we go through the content marketing and then the PowerPoints and things that are start. Start your Facebook business page. Start with twice a week if that's all you can do and be consistent or three times a week. Where can you get resources and I actually have some things in there. We write our own blog posts. We also, I get things all the time. I listen to podcasts. I read things from MBS Highway from all the things so that I can say, hey, this is an article you can put on your Facebook business page that adds value to your clients. So don't use the excuse that you don't have material because you're not blogging or something like that. We have material that you can use on your social media outlets, whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's, you know, whatever. And there's, I have about 30 different resources outside of ourselves that they can go to whether it's you know, realtor.com. You know, even Zillow, you know, whatever. And there's all kinds of things. MSN.com all kinds of things that they can get information. Or their base. They've got good content on here. So I'm curious to what degree do you get realtors using it? It's interesting. I feel like it goes through phases. I think we'll see people using it more this winter because we are more seasonal in Michigan and a lot of realtors that I work with. They let their, their consistency in their marketing. Go by the wayside with the Facebook with their Instagram. So over the winter months, they're all bucking that up. And so you'll see them sharing some of those articles. You know, so it's interesting. It's more cyclical. Yeah, I recognize a couple of these checklists too. That's pretty cool. Yeah. That's the way to use them. All right. So this makes me also think of what you mentioned earlier is you have a Facebook VIP page or is it a group? Is it a page or group? It's a group. So it's a VIP group for realtors. Yes. And it's our realtor partners and our realtor partners. You know, it's someone that has to send us a few deals a year or that we are in touch with or we have coffee with or we have some sort of strategy session with that were really. It's not just someone who wants to use all of our resources, but not use Michigan. Yeah, right. Quick story on that. So we had a realtor that we actually were we had tried over the years and it just for whatever reason it wasn't we didn't think it was the right fit. And so we removed them from the VIP realtor less. And oh, my gosh. Like that. So they call them. They said, what happened? Why did you remove us? And we basically explain. Hey, this is a partnership. And this is not this is what we're about, you know, partnerships. So since then, I have probably close five loans with this and they're a great partner now. They just didn't really they didn't really get it. So they were in your private Facebook group. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And they didn't like that. And now we're now we're partners. What do you guys call your group? It's just VIP realtor group. Okay. Is it like branded? You got a logo or anything on that? I do. I have a little. I think team garrison logo on it. Okay. All right. And so you're posting content in there similar to what you're talking about with the. The, what is it called? Resource center. Yeah. Yes. So, you know, if we have a blog post, I'll put it on there. If I find something, you know, try to do things even realtor less that that, you know, things that why use or. Right. Any of those types of things that helps them in their business. I try to send through the Facebook page. But also market information that we've gotten as, as lenders that they are privy to that they can share with their. Just educational things. The things that they're using it for is, you know, sometimes you have. Harder to sell listings and 85 realtor right now and they're from, you know, probably 15 different brokerages. They send things to each other like, hey, this is a new listing coming up or this is a packet listing or something. So it's, you know, crossing a bunch of different brokerages not just within their own. And are you active in there? You know, or is the group generally active? You know, I would say there are like six to ten people who are the most active and I find and I do things and I'm. That's a goal this year to work on a little bit more to make it a little bit stronger. Yeah. It does take. Yeah, time. You know, for sure. Yes. And setting the expectations with the group that, you know, hey, guys, this group isn't for me. It's for you. Right. To come and collectively learn together. But it does take time to get them to share and all that. How many are in there? Roughly right now in the face. It's about 85 right now. I think. Oh, well, all right. That's good size. Good for you. I do like you have some qualifiers though around it. You're not just, it's not just a catch all. Yeah. Well, and we come up when we meet with people, we have a realtor partner commitment that. There's a lot of things on there. Like these are things that we can do for you, but these are expectations. Is that what you're holding in your hand there? That little. Yeah, that's, that's my little. What is so, so no, I'm curious about that realtor partner partner. So, you know, you're that with them in the meeting. Yeah, it's not the first meeting, but that's usually a second meeting where we can kind of go over. These are some of the specific things now that we've met with you. And I've, I've given them a marketing survey in it. It's, you know, better. You are this for me. So I can see how we can. How would they rate themselves in different marketing? Yeah. And then, you know, they want to come back because literally most realtors aren't great at any of that. So they look at it and they go, my God, I'm a three in all of these things. I'm two out of 10. So yeah, I need your help. Let me ask you this question. And you guys are a little bit unique in that. You know, you've got the different roles here. But, but how do you. Did you ever feel like, well, let me say it this way, oftentimes I hear L.O.s. They kind of come back to me with, hey, I'm not an expert on those topics. You know, I'm going to. Yeah. How do you deal with with that and like attempting to, like we do with the classes, right? It's like, hey, you're not an expert, so to speak, on X. How do you write? Yeah, I guess. I was an educator. And so to me, when I started this position even, there's so many people who are self taught. I mean, look at Tony Robbins. To me, you can learn a lot and you can Google a lot and you can read a lot. And for me, all of the content that we're giving them is so much of it is so statistical. You know, it's facts. Yeah. We have a question. Yeah. I'm glad to hear from you. I don't know. Last year, Google did a bunch of things with NAR because we have a presentation next week and I wanted to just get their numbers. I don't know. They you could we go in. So I would add to that. So I had that same issue when it was, when Jill wasn't on board with me. I was an expert and I am an expert at, at mortgages, but not at the marketing piece of it. of it. Well, to me, it was it was difficult for me and still is difficult for me to go in and talk about some of these different things. So Jill has made herself in a short period of time and an expert at some of these marketing things, but someone that's that's maybe a one person team honestly might have a hard time without bringing on a new team member to do some of this stuff. Frankly, I think it might be harder for your one one loan officer type person to be able to do this, but someone that has a team member of that team is very, very important. So if the person that has a, you know, processor and a healthy one, a healthy two, this is an added team member that they probably should have. Right, right. Even in part time because it can. Yeah. That's what they said. Yeah. Well, what would you say then, Rob, to let's put it back on you for a second, you know, in today's world, to what degree do you think it's then important, though, for the L.O. to brush up, right? And understand some of these things themselves. I already know where you go. Yeah. I think I think it I think it depends on where they see their role or team. If they are, if they say it's solo solo shop like one loan officer individual L.O. Well, I mean, they certainly should know some of this, but honestly, I think they're probably going to need, they're probably going to need to hire this. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, let's face it, how long do you want to do business alone, right? Eventually, you're going to need assistance and support and help if you're going to get a real business. Right. I have to say to Jeff that the slideshows are, you know, with the notes and everything. I mean, for any of us, no matter what our background was, we had to do each one the first time. Yeah. Don't know what you're doing, but then each time you tweak it and you get different questions and then your feedback forms. So to me, I would rather go out and do a class or Rob would rather go out and do a class and have some bumps and mean, then not do it like the. Yeah. I would rather do it with some bumps and bruises than not do it. I think we can do it. Well, the other piece of this is some people, some people that are that do a lot of business mortgages, they like the marketing piece of it. They're good at it and they could do that and that's what their passions. But some people, like me, are more in tune with, I'm going to be really good at advising. Like that's my role, I'm an advisor and so I can meet with clients and talk to them and help them manage their debt. And that the marketing piece hasn't really been a huge passion of mine, but it's interesting when we go do these when we go do these meetings, it's nice even when it's about marketing to have to have me there just to kind of fill in some of the gaps. Let's do this while we're on the thread for a second, Rob. If we could explain for us your loan process from the point of referral, you're on the phone, taking the app, whatever. Okay. So because we are trying to make this great for all different types of people, there's lots of different ways that people can apply. So with our app, they actually can apply right through the app now. They can actually upload their docs through the app. So some of them are taking advantage of this, especially the younger people. They like that. They like to be able to do everything through their phone. They can sign their docs through it. They can track their loan through it. They can upload all their docs and it's really, really nice. Other people they want, they want to talk first. So they call in, they either talk to me or my LP one. And we take the information, we put it in the system. And then generally, after we have the information and they are financeable, in other words, their credit, we pulled their credit, it looks good. It looks like this is somebody that we can work with. We actually try to meet with them. And then we, so we schedule an appointment, a pre-qual appointment. We have them come in, bring their documents in, and I personally will sit down with them and meet with them. I schedule those for an hour. I usually will take about 30 to 40 minutes during those meetings. And I'm going through, so most of their information already have, right? So most of the time I'm spending going through advisory stuff. So this is how the process goes. These are the different loan types. This is why we're putting you in this loan. This is, and then I have them download the app. This is your payment. This is, and I teach them how to actually run their own payments. So he begins in the evenings. I see all of the activity and it's amazing how many people are running payments. You do a budget, a lot of times you have a budget run. So sometimes it's time permitting, but I'll do, I won't do this with everyone, but I do, I do have a budget that I can go through with them and a debt elimination plan that I can go through with them. So there's a lot of things that we're going through in that pre-qual meeting. Basically, you're building a report, you're building confidence for them, showing them what we're going to do for them, explaining the process. So then once they're ready, I then will email back to the agent that referred them and to them a recap. Because when you're doing this all day long, you forget what you told them. So I do it immediately. That's why I scheduled these off for an hour because I have to do it immediately as my brain gets older because it's harder to remember. So I'll send that immediately, tell them, this is what the price point you should be looking at. There's so much money you're going to need. This is a long type you're going to do. This is the concessions you're going to need if you do need them. And then I'll save that into the system. And then when the time comes for them to write an offer, I know what I told them. I'll usually will send the pre-approval at that time, but sometimes if they're just kind of, I know that they're going to be out shopping. I'll send that pre-approval earlier than that. Normally, I like to have them tell me exactly what they're looking at. What's the property type? What are we doing here before I'll send that pre-approval? And I can actually send that now through my app. I can send them right. That's a nice convenient. So you can do that from that beautiful lake. And then once they actually have a deal going, different loan officers in our office will do different things like my partner. For example, he brings them back in again, almost papers in the time. What I'm finding is I've already met with them. I have the report with them. I'm actually have them signing right through our app now. So most of those are EDAC. EDAC is from from that on. And so we do a lot of communication during the process. We're still we're doing Tuesday update calls with them. Okay. And I'm informed at least once a week by email. We're keeping the agents informed. So lots of communication, but not really face-to-face. Sure. Well, but like you said, you've got that first face-to-face meeting. A lot of what about the younger people? Are you bringing them in as well? I see younger people. What I what I've noticed is that well, a lot of the young people are first-time home buyers, right? So you say, don't I say, listen, we can do everything if you want online and through the app. But what I found as a first-time home buyer, there's lots of things that I can advise you on and help you manage this debt in the future. So I'd like to meet with you and have you meet me. And honestly, most of them come in. That's interesting. Glad you mentioned that because I know there's a lot of perception out there about whether or not people want to meet face-to-face if they're young, you know, like you said, people love to do some stuff through the app. Yes, but they do like the face-to-face. Yeah, they want the advisor and statistically that's out there. They want everything online and look at reviews and everything, but then once they've committed to something, they want that patient piece. Yeah. Are you using any tools like in a mortgage coach or anything like that? MBS Highway. MBS Highway. Okay, cool. Nice. Okay, so next question for we're going to stay on this loan thread for a second, originally, analytical. Do you track your numbers very closely, meaning how many conversations to apps, apps to conversions, that kind of stuff? Yes, I don't have them in front of me, but I have them. Yeah, I know. Yes, I do. So mainly the way that I do it is I just look at how many credit reports I pulled. It's a little bit difficult. I mean, that's kind of the baseline. So if I pull the credit report usually because we're pulling credit on 98, 99% of the people that we talk to, all the how many people I talk to, and then I can just do the numbers based off of how many apps we've taken versus how many we've closed. So I know those numbers. I know I'm putting you on the spot. We didn't prep for this, but do you have a sense of what your conversion ratio is, whatever metric you want to use, whatever. Yeah, it's about it's about one. It varies with the loan officer and obviously with the quality of the lead that you're getting, but it's somewhere between one in three and one in five that we have. Got it. Very good. And are you guys following a specific talk track or dialogue or script, you know, with first conversations? So that's actually one of the things that we are kind of working on so that we have a similar experience between loan officer teams. So you get, you kind of get a script just because you have to do it for 20 some years, you kind of get that, but we have just now starting to kind of write those down so that different team members are getting used to seeing similar things. So I think scripting is actually really, really important, but it's not been something that we've been great at. Well, yeah, you do have to consciously think of and document it and things like that. And of course, I'm thinking about this in the context of, you know, do you get rate shopped, how do you deal with it, you know, that kind of stuff. You know, obviously you do a little bit. When I control, when they've been referred to me in the way that they're getting, the scripting for the referral is the most important thing. We have scripts, we have scripts, we have scripts. So one of Jill held up the, yeah, the wheelchair partner commitment. One of the commitments is they need to agree to sit out with us and help with referrals and how to refer and what the scripting should look like for that. Yeah. So yeah, good. Can you give us a sense of how you coach them to refer you? Yeah. So we actually have that written down. I don't have it right here. So the gist of it is we want them to hit on, I have a person that I trust. It's important that they're local when you're writing the offer so that they explain that. So this is the person that I trust and we'll be able to advise you and walk you through the process and guide you through the process. So it is available on the weekends and in the evening and is one brought to choke. Yeah. So basically just hitting on the trust piece of it and accessibility piece. And then once I start the cut, so they have that going into, so I'm not having to, it's not like where you've got leaping or a lead generation where you're going on sale. Like we are, we don't get those deals. We don't get the zillions. We have a referral from somebody. So already having a prep, hey, I'm calling this guy because I'm going to get great advice of me to have a great experience. Yeah. So honestly, we don't get, we don't get shopped a lot. Occasionally, you'll have that well, so and so, so and so, says that they can do this. Here's what I say to that. As I say, well, okay, if you have a relationship with that bank, it really doesn't matter. Sorry about that. I'm sorry. Yes, calls come on matter. What rate or what term that I give you because you're going to go with them because the differences between cost and pricing are just so nominal anymore that it's really not going to matter. It's going to become down of that relationship. So if you if you're thinking I'm going to give you a lot better deal, probably not that's probably not going to happen. However, if you want to use me because of the experience that you're going to have or the information you're going to get for the guidance that you're going to get, I can tell you that we will, you know, we can match or be whatever else is out there. So go back to the relationship. So if they want to use us, they can use us and they're not going to be any worse off. But if they really want to use their credit union, but they're just calling to see if they can get a better rate, I don't really spend a lot of time on most folks. I love that. That's good. I really like the fact that you're coaching your realtors on how to refer you because I think that's an area of too many allos overlooked. Maybe they're that reluctant or feel for or don't think that, you know, the realtors are going to buy into that. Yeah, or they'll be annoyed with it actually. Yeah. Did you ever face the three hard realtors? We turn it on them. You do. Tell me about it. Yeah. So if we're going to refer someone to you, realtor A, we don't give them two or three cards and say, call these three realtors. We say call this realtor, this realtor will work well with you, you know, for whatever. And so a lot of times when you put it that way, they're like, oh, yeah, no, I don't want you giving three cards to any referring me. Right. And some of them, they're just trained. Well, we think, we think we have to do that by law. And honestly, I just say, if you, if you want to rotate people, that's fine, but you're confusing the, but you're confusing the client. It's not a, it doesn't give, you're not edifying us. And we, it doesn't, it's not a great referral when you're giving three cards because you don't really, it's either you don't really trust any of them or you don't have a relation, a deep relationship with any of them. So we, we honestly don't use any realtors that that are totally committed to the three business card thing. Yeah. We might get some ones these two, these from most people, but it's, we don't work. Yeah. We get the ones that they, they can't get none or whatever, but that's not really the relationship we're looking for. There's enough realtors out there that want what we have that we don't really need to, those, those agents that are referring to people, they're not getting anything of real value from their, they're, they're from their lender relationship. Right. So we're trying to do is change that. So when, when they do refer, we want them to know that their clients and the best hands and it's going to actually help not only their client, but them and help their job. If they're, if they're not 100% committed to that, we need to work on that relationship to show them why it's not. Do you often get the realtor then who either, you know, kind of kind of pushes on you or holds you, tries to hold you accountable in terms of that reciprocation back on leads? That's question one. Yeah. Yeah. So occasionally, I'll let you know, but so what I do with that is I just say, listen, if you, if you look at our model, our model is about past clients that were originally referred 80, 80 to 90% of the time by other agents. So we track where that client came from and we tell them either that client or the, or whoever that client refers, that's going back to the original referring realtor, which is a benefit to the referer, right? Yeah. Thanks. We just don't get, because we're not advertising and we don't have call centers and think like that, we don't have a lot of ability to generate those leads. However, I do keep track of that and I have about 30 year that I am able to refer out and I refer those out to my best referral partners and I tell them that and then I do refer those out, but there's not a ton of them. Yeah. Yeah. And you have a system in a process and I'm sure you explain this to realtors that in your post-close process, your client touch follow-up systems and all that, you're always looking for those opportunities for them to either themselves be active to buy again or people they know, you know what I mean, that whole thing. Absolutely. We do do that and then we track it back to them. I have been able to refer those types of deals, but that takes some time because it takes the years. So I'm guessing that you're kind of answer to that question about, hey, what about you sending me leads? Your answer to that in general is, look, that's not my number one value proposition to you. My number one value proposition to you is an excellent customer experience, so you have a referable experience. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm glad you guys kind of confirmed that because you know, it's funny. I've asked some other people about that in the past and you know, some people think that that's like what would say that a top-producing realtor would call BS on that. And I don't agree with that because I think any realtor worth worth their salt understands the value of the experience with that loan officer and realtor because they're going to blame the realtor no matter what. Well, right. So I think someone said this at the when we saw you in Las Vegas. So, you know, basically the realtor kind of is 50% of the transaction, the lender is the other 50% or 48% of the other things in there. But so when you're working with a lender that you trust and you know is going to make you look good is going to be a great experience for the client, you're not just controlling your 50% of the real estate transaction. You're actually controlling 100% because it's lender and you together. When the deal is done a lot of times, they don't know the difference between, okay, that did not go well. So my realtor's that realtor didn't do a good job and I didn't do a good job or vice versa. So people who want that 100%, I think those. So, so in all of these coffee clutch conversations and lunches and all of these things that we do, we can tell pretty easily. I mean, I would say probably eight out of 10 people that we meet with are going to be those people. And that's why they're meeting with us in the first day. But in a while, someone leaves and I'm like, probably won't be getting in touch with that person again. I mean, intuitively, you know, after that first meeting, you know, is what I found is that some realtor's like we've got like some very, very good friends that are that don't refer us. It's just some sometimes they're just not doing for anyone. They don't really care. They're not refers and they don't care and they don't see the value in it and they don't do it, which is fine. But you got to spend your time with those few that are going to be really going to see the value in it. And that's that's why you have to sift through enough people to get the finals. I think we kind of mentioned it before is like there's enough agents out there who will do business on generally your terms that you don't necessarily need to sacrifice kind of your business model, you know. Yeah. That's very cool. Awesome. Yeah. So we do just just kind of in that same vein. And we get asked to do, you know, desk rentals a lot, Zillow leads. And we do do some of that more out of, I don't know, more out of just trying to support their business. We don't really get anything from that. All right. So let's close it out here and talk about what you're doing in the community, Jill, to get exposure for Michigan mortgage. Just share with us some of those things. And why do you do that? Okay. So we've always been really active in the community. It's just a great place to live. So one of the things that I like to do is we do used to be monthly now. It's quarterly, but it's called a hometown highlight. I like to find people doing positive good things in our community. So, you know, maybe it's a new company that's open units really help you juices or maybe it's someone who is doing a really positive podcast in the area. So I reach out to people and interview them and put together a blog post. We put it on our email, or our, excuse me, our website. But then we've got about 3,000 people on our business Facebook page for Michigan mortgage. And then I have 3,000 personally. So what we try to do is disseminate that out so that they have exposure. And it's them promoting themselves. It's like someone else promoting the good deeds and the good work that they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. And that's been actually really fun for me. Yeah, look at your Facebook page. By the way, that looks great. That logo at the top. Happy fall, y'all. Oh, thanks. All right, guys. So listen, I know you're both very busy. You've got 15 high deals in the pipeline. You need to get back to them. And Jill, if you get some realtors to talk with and, you know, make relationships happen. Why don't we do this? For those that want to reach out and learn more about you, I want to make sure that number one, they check out your Facebook business page because that to me is a smoke and hot business page. And the engagement you're getting from that, like, I'm going to steal this just so you know, your one sip that your September, your emoji of the month for September. I love that. I love that. You got 37 comments on that. And that's awesome. That's great engagement. So for those that want to find that page, it's Facebook.com forward slash we are mish mortgage. Did I say that right? Yes. We are mish and my CH mortgage. How about your website? Where would people find you there? So www.mishmorge.com. And I think, you know, go to the realtor resource page so they can see kind of what we're doing to work with our realtor partners. And they just have to put their email in. We don't do anything with it. It's just we just don't want everyone going to that and taking our resources, other lenders and everybody else. Absolutely. You guys are doing great things out there. It's a pleasure and honor to know you. I appreciate you making time for us today, especially with the crazy Wi-Fi situation going on there. So go tackle that problem. Thanks, Jeff. We love working with you. We appreciate all you're doing for us. Yeah. It's my pleasure. Hopefully we can meet up again in person. So everybody, listeners, thank you for tuning in. As always, we appreciate you and we'll see you on the next episode. Bye for now. 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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