Ep. 141 - The Art of Making Things Happen in Your Business and Life

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the 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 Coghill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. I'm brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey, listeners, what's up? Jeff is in for your host for another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. So glad you tuned in. And if you've been listening for a while, I appreciate you. I just want you to know that. If you're brand new to the podcast, I appreciate you just as much. Welcome. Welcome to the community. You know there's other ways you can connect with us. You can join our private Facebook community, Jeff for podcast listeners. Go to Facebook and just type in Mortgage Marketing Radio. Boom. You'll come up there. You want to communicate with me directly. That's where you do it. You can also send me an email, podcast at Mortgage Marketing Radio.com. Love to connect with you there. Send me a message any time you would like. And I would always like to take a moment to give a shout out to our podcast listeners who do take a moment to leave a review. I appreciate you greatly for doing that. And today I'm giving a shout out to Besale 45. His review of the podcast says amazing. This is such a great podcast, amazing tips and content from only the best in the industry. Hey, Besale, I want to thank you, Besale 45. I should say that is your handle. Listen, I want to thank you for doing that. Here's how you do it. Anybody else listening? You want to do the same. If you want to leave a review, yeah. Leave a review wherever you're listening. iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever fine podcasts are provided. And I want you to do that. Hit me up on the Facebook's DM me. Let me know you left a review, which are mailing addresses and your t-shirt size. So we can send you off a podcast, swag, box full of lots of good, cool, fun stuff for you to, too, to proudly display your support for mortgage marketing radio. All right. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to just get into this week's episode because the conversation is real. It's raw. It's authentic and transparent. And it's one that's been, for me, a long time coming because this gentleman has literally blown up in the last two years in the mortgage and real estate space. And really he's spoken at a lot of different conferences. He's been on different people's shows and I figure it's about time we bring him to you. My listeners here at the mortgage marketing radio podcast. Who am I talking about? Talking about Steve Sims, right? He's the founder and CEO of luxury concierge service, Bluefish. And he has published a book called Blue Fishing, the art of making things happen. And Steve has an incredible story beginning as a bricklayer in London to nowadays, hobnobbing and rubbing elbows with the world's elite wealthy CEOs, executive celebrities, many names of whom you recognize, many names that cannot be revealed. But some that can include Elon Musk, Elton John. How about this? How about if you were a client and wanted to have a real impactful dinner in Italy at the feet of the statue of David while you're serenaded by Andrea Pichelli? Steve Sims is the guy who can make things happen. Steve Sims is the guy who makes magic happen. And Steve Sims is the guy who knows how to show up and be your authentic self to get attention and to get real true connection, meaningful connection with anybody you want. And so there's lots of lessons in today's podcast about being your transparent real self, about connecting with other people, about getting off of technology and getting back to the real issue of being human and building real community and relationships. And that's what we talked about here today. And I'm 100% confident you're going to enjoy this week's episode. And by the way, before I forget, Steve does have a special offer just for you, our listeners here at Mortgage Marketing Radio. He has a special course that he's hosting just for Mortgage professionals. And it's called Ahead of the Curve and I'm going to put links in the show notes to get it. It's a special discount code just for our listeners where you can get 40% off the enrollment. So if you want to check this out, it's SteveD Sims.com, SteveDSims.com forward slash Ahead of the Curve. Go check it out. This program starts, the course starts October 30th, so there's still time for you to get in there right now. And what he's going to be doing is basically helping you and me have an unfair advantage. So how would you like to connect with the clients you want, the referral partners you want to get? You want to have a more meaningful conversation, perhaps even reduce some of the raid shoppers, right? Would you like your clients partners to do some of the marketing for you? And would you like to be the obvious choice? Have a distinctive advantage over your competitors, over other options that your referral partners and clients' prospects might be comparing you to, right? What's great about Steve is he's fresh, he's edgy, right? He's got a no BS style to actually producing breakthrough results in minimum time. So this course that he's going to be offering is there's none other like it because there's nobody else like Steve. So I want you to go check it out. And when you do, if it's for you, here's the discount code that you want to enter in. Once again, you go to SteveDSims.com forward slash Ahead of the Curve. And then if you choose to take action on it, hey, enter this code. The code is Sims AOTC40, right? So once again, Sims S-I-M-S-A-O-T-C, which stands for Ahead of the Curve 40. What that 40 represents is a 40% discount on the course. And again, I'll put links to the show notes, but it's Steve.Sims.com forward slash Ahead of the Curve. So I encourage you to check that out. That's going to be an incredible experience for us to go through together. And it's got all kinds of other free bonuses in it, such as included as a bonus, which is access to his one-year membership in Sims Distillery, which I can't even tell you about that. You've just got to go to the website and check it out even more. All right. So with that said, let's get into this week's show. Steve Sims, welcome to the show. Hey, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. You are an incredible demand. I'll tell you what, because I did some research, you know. I've been following you since I saw you at the Mastermind Summit in Vegas, which was phenomenal. Great. Probably one of the standout presentations that was there. But you've been blown up in the mortgage in real estate space from what I can see over the last, I don't know what year or so, maybe two years. And so I was curious as I'm coming into this interview, what your take is, what your perception, if I'm correct, that it's only been about two years that you've kind of blown up in mortgage in real estate, right? Yeah. What's your take a prescription, you know, description of those of us as professionals in this space? Hi, so, so skew people context prior to two years ago, I was only known by about one percent of the planet, my client owns things like countries. I've released a book two years ago, and it kind of jettisoned me into another chapter of my life, working more with the entrepreneurial market, a couple of people heavy in the mortgage industry, Bill Hart, especially Dave Savage, Todd Brookspan, they pushed my book out there and got me into this industry and to be completely blunt with it, because my past was dealing with luxury items, luxury events, luxury experiences, I never thought I'd be in the mortgage industry, but what I've always excelled at, and where I come back to that, because that's actually a lie, but what I've become very well known for is my ability to communicate. When I got into the mortgage industry, I was kind of like, oh, this is novel, you know, the mortgage industry, they obviously want me to be on stage to shake it up, because, you know, I'm a little bit different, I've got some stories, you know, you've always got that kind of, here's an oddball on the stage, just to, you know, shake out the stories, that's the plot part I felt that I was playing, but then I realized that what I was doing was so necessary in your industry and how, and I'm trying to put this polite, so I don't think I can, how so many of you have kind of lost the plot, you know, and it seems to be, because we've had mortgages, you know, for decades, you're still treating it like it was decades ago, you know, almost like trying to find hate for the horse and car. The industries have changed, people's needs have changed, people's longevity and poverty have changed, so many things have changed, but so many people within the industry have not, and I found it a very stagnant industry. Now here's the last thing, I found a stagnant industry, but with the cool kids not wanting to be stagnant, and they were kind of grasping for, for, for a life jacket, I remember someone, I used this analogy, but I saw an interview once, and it was about these guys that pulled these helicopters over, where boats had gone over, and there's like 50 people in the water, and they throw a rope down, and someone interviewed and they said, how do you know who to throw the rope down to? And he said it's the one with the hand up in the air, trying to grab it, you know, so in this industry, there's a lot of people that are kind of, oh no, no, we don't do that, oh no, we don't get involved, video text, oh no, we don't do that, and you get those others going, I want to do something different, I want to appeal to a bigger, and that a one for the hand up searching for the rope, and I found that these people were quite simply the only thing they were looking for, to do was to gain permission on how to communicate better with people that needed to solve mortgage and be the state problems with, so I found that the market was heavily divided, and I ended up working with some of these people that wanted to change things, and I found a hungry community that I kind of got into that said, hey, just because that's how we did it, doesn't mean how we have to do it, if that's how we do it now, as to how we used to do it, we'd be faxing people off us, you know, so things change, people change, technology comes in to help you change, and there is a growing dynamic within the mortgage world to say, hey, we're changing with it, there's some old guards that are on the dyin side, on the dinosaur side, and they're out there with the, you know, with the extinct dinosaurs, and they will be moved on, but there was a young lot of people, as you went and it's with Connor, when he put the speakeasy, there's a young tribe, there's a new energy within this industry, and I also think that, you know, people like, you know, Zillow and Purple Bricks, and these kind of companies, Rocket Loans, they're actually challenging, and when someone challenges you or throws a kind of jab to your chin, you either go down or you get fighting, yeah, and he's really interesting to see that there's a new breed within the real estate and mortgage industry that they're actually fighting, and those are the people I'm working with, those are the people that are energizing me, to energize them, and do things big differently. Yeah, I'm wondering, I think of like the, you know, the, the, the previous speaker circuit, if you will, before you came on the scene, right, we had our old dogs, so to speak, that have been doing the events and speaking for a number of years, and then you show up with this fresh face, a different voice kind of in your face, you know, attitude, and I'm wondering if what you're looting to, there's some, you know, some people needed, call it a leader, right? Somebody had to bring them across that, that finish line of like, oh, I don't know, I'm a little apprehensive, and or maybe somebody just to shake them up and wake them up, like, hey, this is how it's done, because the old crowd was like preaching the same thing over and over again. Yeah, but that's like the old school choir, they always tell you, I know you can't do that, this is how we do it. Right. Well, just because that's how they do it does not mean how you should, and here's the thing, if you do stuff today, like they do, then you're one of them, you're one of the crowd, you don't stand out, you're not individual. So I've heard it often said, and it sounds very arrogant, but it gets into context. A lot of the people that I consult with, and I do consult a lot of the mortgage industry, the word I keep hearing is the word permission. And I keep hearing, no, well, you gave us permission to try something, you gave us permission, you know, I'll be completely blunt with you. Nine times out of 10, all you've got to do is get a whole of these people rattle them around and then go, right, now let's see how we do things. And when they step out of their comfort zone, they suddenly go, there's a whole new world out here. There's a whole new different thing that I could be doing. And I think that's what's really happening now. They're looking for that, they're looking for that permission. And when they get out, there they go, oh, it's nice out here. You know, it's more productive. It's more impactful. I can do more with it. And here's the weird thing. I can have fun with it. Because you find a lot of the odd real estate, stuck in the 70s, they've got photo shop pictures of when they were 20 years old. And now they're 62. You know, they're doing things the way they're used to do it. And they're getting the results, not even the results they used to get because time to actually changed. Yeah. Do you find, have you experienced, um, fear, you know, with people making these shifts, like I know you talk a lot about, you know, using video text and so forth and we can get into that. But is that some of the risks? Resistance, you think people are facing being judged or doing the unknown? Well, you bring up a couple of points. So fear, fear is always there. Okay. I have a lot of fear. Um, I base motorcycles. I get, well, so you don't come across as having fear. No, no, no, I have, I have a lot of fear. Yeah. And everybody does. And anyone that tells you, well, if you saw me at Marshall's event, um, behind the stage, I've got my earphones in, I'm tromping in some, can I peel jam or some food fires? And I'm kind of like, I'm getting there and I'm nervous. And I base motorcycles. And every time I'm on the grid and there's the person holding the, I'm peeing myself. Yeah, when the green flag goes down, that's when you start. That's when you click on. That's when you click on. You see the sad thing is when fear stops you. That's the crime. Fear should propel you. You know, I'm scared to do this. Okay. You've acknowledged it. How do I get rid of that fear? I do it. So I have a lot of fear. When I go on stage, I'm pumped, but also have you ever noticed when you're really nervous at something? Okay. Your entire body's alive, isn't it? Yes. Every single element of you is pumped. You can feel the hairs on the nails of your feet. You know, your entire body is in that moment. You are 100% like, why would you not want that? And so, yeah, there's a lot of fear that people go, well, I'm going to try something different. Well, look at the results again. You're not exactly setting the world alike now. You know, so you can do two things. You can go forward, or you can go back because you can't stand still because the rest of the, the rest of the world is moving. Okay. So you've got those two choices. And do you find that people in the mortgage and real estate space believe that to your comment that the world is moving? Give you an example. I'm doing a webinar once and talking about being on Facebook and somebody hits me up and says, Hey, I've been doing this business 15 years. Why do I need to be on Facebook? And I'm doing fine. You know, so do you find that that mentality exists too? Yeah, you always get those. You'll always get those people to say, no, no, no, I don't need that. You know, that doesn't work. And the only reason they're doing that is because they're actually challenging you. They don't want you to do it because it's going to prove that they can't. Okay. I get probably every time I do an event, I want a program called a head of the curve. And every time, yeah, every time I do a mortgage event, I promote the head of the curve. And then I get a bunch of people joining in going, hey, I want to do something. I want to see the other side. I want to take the blue pill or the red pill, whatever the matrix context is there. I want to take one of the bills. Just to tell. Yeah, just a pill. But then you get other people and I don't know why they do it. But they contact me going, I like your presentation. It was very entertaining. But it won't work for me. Yeah. Why would they say that? Why would they email me going, oh, thank you. And I always contact them and I go, well, it's funny that you say it won't. You accept that it won't without trying it. What gives you the credibility of your authority to be able to make that statement? And you're right. You can't reach everyone. You're going to say, hey, we need to be doing more on social. There's technology out there now. And I'm trying a new technology on marketing now, which I'm going to reveal at the end of November, okay, on my Facebook group. I have a Facebook group called an entrepreneur's advantage. It's free of charge. I'm going to be doing a big reveal at the end of November if it works or not. And it's scary. It's going to make, at the moment, everyone goes Facebook, Facebook, Facebook. We're trying something now that it's going to be like, we're here and Facebook is down here. Now, it may work, it may not be so far as looking interesting. But the point is I like to try different things because while everyone's turning left, I want to turn light. Now, I may hit a dead end, but you never know when you may find a different scene, it root. And all of those people that challenge you and go, it's not for me. Do you know the answer? You're right. It's not. You know, you don't even try and advance. You just say you're right. I don't. I don't. You know, I'm there to help people that want to be helped. I'm there to work with people that have got I give me permission, give me an opening. And you actually bought something up within your question about fear. You said about fear and people seeing you fail today and think about it today. We're not fighting the failure. We're actually fighting the people seeing us fail. Now, back pre 2000, which was plenty two days ago, wasn't that long ago. We didn't have America's funniest videos. We didn't have your vines. We didn't have YouTube. We didn't have the ability to record someone falling on their face and then plastering it to millions of people on the internet. We didn't have that ability. So when you fell over in 1992, there wasn't a video of it. Okay. But now it's there for everyone to laugh at. People love, we've made TV shows. Our people walking into walls. People are now scared of being seen to fail. Now, do you know the funny thing is, and I'm going to name drop. I was with Elon Musk in SpaceX. And someone actually else with a crowd of people, we had about 10 guests that we're taking in there. One of the people turned around and asked one of the stupidest questions. He was trying to obviously get into a conversation with Elon. And he turned around and he said to him, he said, you know, aren't you worried about everyone seeing you fail at these rockets and things and asked him that. I thought it was a stupid question. But Elon turned around and he said, they'll always laugh at me before they applaud. And I just thought, no, it obviously rehearsed that line. But I've stolen that so many times. Be prepared to look silly before you're praised. Okay. Do something different. As the naysayers go, oh, look at him. Look at him. Soon they will reveal you because no one great ever did it by following anyone else. Yeah, that's a great story with Elon. He's obviously experienced his fair share of failure. And it's an interesting point about that because if you look at the level of what he has succeeded and then he goes on to do SpaceX X and does fail in the public with the media publishing the challenges he's having and so forth, like even with Tesla, for example, right? All the questions around Tesla, are they going to survive and etc, etc. And yet he's, I don't know if I would say he's immune to it, but he still moves forward. No, he is immune to it. He's immune to it. The one of the things that I noticed within the people that I hang around with that I respect is that every single one of them is a failure. Richard Branchon, Jean Paul de Gervier, Elon Musk, P.M. Anders, Joe Polish, all of these people are failures. Okay. But they didn't allow that failure to define them. They allowed it to refine them. You see, the greatest growth, the greatest education comes from the greatest falling. Okay. You fall down and then you learn, well, I know how to do that and you never, ever get out of a failure, the same height. You're like an elastic band. You've stretched because you've become empowered. If you look at the amount of virgin brands out there that have failed, he's been on everything from I think condoms to Coca-Cola, to airplanes, to trains. And they're not all successful, you know, but he keeps going. Elon Musk went into a banking empire and said, well, you know, I'm going to overtake the banking world. Okay. Well, how can you dare do that? He did, you know. Now thanks to PayPal, we've got everything from Stripe, Venmo. You have so many different ways you can send people money now. The PayPal may not even be the market leader anymore. Now he's gone into cars, but a lot of people aren't aware that he's also into battery technology. I took a crowd of my clients on a speak easy to Reno showed it and they showed us how he was building battery technology. And he said, quite simply, I look at the bottleneck. I look at the cause of how I develop and can grow and where the problem is. And you get a lot of people going, well, how do I make this car fast? Well, I put a bigger engine in it. Okay. And he's gone in there, going, well, actually, I make everything to surround that engine lighter and stronger. Okay. And he's doing that with battery technology now. You look at your iPhone. You know, when they first came out five years ago, you had to charge them three times a day. Now you have a phone, you're playing videos on it every 10 seconds. Everything's being downloaded. Everything's being updated. And the latest 11 supposed to last a couple of days between between charges. So if you can solve that and look how thin they've got, if you can solve that. So when we were in the giga factory in Reno, he was talking to us that the cars and the battery technology in the car is technology that he's using to improve his battery farm. So one hand is washing the other hand and looking after it. That guy's fine. That guy fails a lot. And he doesn't allow it to define him. He doesn't allow it to bruise him. And let's be blunt. You know, he just keeps going because he focuses on the substance, not on the shine. And too many people now are focused on looking good. Being good. Yeah. Well, that's that's a nice pivot into probably some of the downside of social media today, right? Well, it's got its advantages. Like anything, I guess it's a double edge sword, but you're right. There's a lot of posters. There's a lot. Maybe that's fueling the idle tier point earlier about the videos and falling down because the appearances people are succeeding so much on social. I don't think that's the reality. So two weeks ago, this is sum up everything you just said in one story. Two weeks ago, I was in Beverly Hills. And as pretty much anyone who follows me, follows me, no, I ride motorcycles. So I parked my bike in this garage. So garage. And I went down there to just grab the bike and right at the far end, because they always make bikes park at the back. Right at the far end, there's this incredibly bright green Lamborghini. Okay. And there's these two dudes on it. And this camera guy and this lighting guy. And these two are leaning on the on the front. And that stood there. And they're giving it large. They're like, if you want this, you know, you need to work hard. You need to do this. You need to join our program. Get this now. This could be your car. And they are, they are selling it. Okay. Well, I'm walking towards them. You know, I was not going to engage in conversation. I wanted nothing to do with this. This is everything about the Instagram world that I actually despise. They took a turn. All of a sudden, I heard this guy yell, who come out of the lift. It was his car that these clowns were filming on. These guys suddenly just shot off to the stairs. This guy chased them. I actually had to stop because I thought I was going to drop a helmet. I was crying that these guys want somebody else's car giving it large about how this can be yours. But you see, it's so many times. And I actually posted on my Instagram page a little while ago, I wish my life was as pretty as it looks on Instagram because every day is a challenge. And if it's not a challenge, you're not trying hard enough. So things go good. Things go great. You know, I'm flying around the world. I'm speaking of events. I'm doing this. But every now and then something comes up and you go, oh, shit. How am I going to get over that? And you know, you allow those moments and then you go, okay, like the green flag going down time to go to work. And so you've got to be careful of what you pay attention to on the internet today. So that makes me think of something interesting. We'll transition into what I know you're largely about, which the only word that comes to mind right now, I don't think you like it, there was like that authentic communication, right? It's an overused word. All right, so let's say be real. You got a different word. What's your transparency? Transparency. Okay. Transparency. So then how does one navigate on social? Let's unpack your strategy for communicating and reaching other people because a lot of those listening, right, loan officers right now, one of the biggest challenges I'm sure you're aware is how do I get attention from real estate agents? Because I want to develop quote relationships, although they their definition of relationship probably isn't a real relationship, right? They're just like you say, you got the hand out, right? Give me a loan. So then how can we be transparent when there's this pressure to make it look like everything's so friggin great, you know? Okay. So all right, let's get into the actionable stuff. Okay. I took over my social probably about a year and a half ago because when we released a book, the publishers had said, oh, we need to give you a social presence. So they got these copywriters and they'd be like a picture of a duck and they'd be like life is glorious and they'd be like a freaking hallmark card. And I'd be like, what the hell is this? It's, you know, Bingo, Daisy, key. So I started and I literally had people say to me, we know when you post stuff because you can't spell, you know? And I was like, well, there you go. So if I'm having a whiskey in a restaurant in Japan and it's really cool, and I'm suddenly taking this stupid selfie after my, you know, couple of whiskies, then it's real and it's transparent. Now even goes for authenticity. I like transparency. I want to be very easy to understood, to be understood. Okay. When you're a loan officer and let's get in the specifics there. Stop selling, stop chasing, start solving. Okay. Now everyone knows that getting a mortgage and buying a home is on the same level as getting a reptile exam. Okay. Yeah. Oh boy, you're going to turn me upside down. All of a sudden, I'm going to feel like a villain. You want paperwork on 1992 and you want my records of this. You want me to be fully exposed to you so that you can make a decision on whether or not I'm worthy. It's horrible. And the perception of it is even worse than that. So what you've got to do is you've got to be able to solve the situation. People put these lovely websites together. Okay. Stop doing that. Everyone updates a website every couple of years. It should, it's your highlight, Bill. I'm looking at me. I was on CNN. I was having this wonderful article. Look at me with this lovely Photoshop picture. Okay. No one watches websites anymore. In fact, there's statistics to show where people search for you. And the number one is social. If you're going to meet someone for beer, you Google them and you straight away go to that social feed. Okay. And you want to look at what do they look like? Who are they? Do you want to look at that? Because the website is that provider, that chest puffing piece on your social now. And we spoke about it earlier about Facebook. It's not a case of whether or not it's happening. It is. It's a case of whether or not you're playing again on your Facebook. And I will say social because everything you put on Facebook, you should be putting on LinkedIn, Twitter and any other of your platforms. Why? Because you're not different on different platforms. You're you. You know, you're as good as you get. Okay. It makes me laugh how people have a different bio on LinkedIn and then a different bio on Facebook. How can you have two different bios? You know, it's ridiculous. So make sure it's all the same on that because people are going to search for you. Be relatable. And one of the things I teach my people is to start doing more video stuff. Okay. People are lazy. People don't need people like to do videos. Get your camera up. Get your phone up. Okay. And just go and you don't don't be perfect. No was perfect. And the first stuff you do is going to be shit. Okay. Every time you do something for the first time, it's shit. But from there, you can get good. You can get better. I remember when I started doing podcasts and stuff, I had a Yeti mic. You know. And then I went up to a different man. None of my sure 58, you know. So you get better, but you've got to start going. Okay. So you pick the phone up and you go, Hey, this is Steve. I want to never call this video because I had someone come to me today with a mortgage question. I've heard this question many, many times. I thought I would quickly give you an answer and post it here so it can help you. Okay. Repeat the question. Give the solution and say, Hey, if you need to want to help you, you know what to find me post it. Okay. You see now, guys, we're not looking for how we're looking for who you've actually frozen on me. Am I still there? Hello. I close for me. Are you back now? I'm back. But you missed out on a very valuable bit. So I'm going to backtrack it a little bit. Okay. So what I was saying was, you know, get the video. You know, give the question that was asked to you, give the solution, post it. Okay. You want to start solving more than you're selling because in today's social currency, we need a who, not a how. If you go to the garage and you need to get your transmission done, do you want the guy to take you over to the corner and say, okay, so put on these overalls, I'm going to show you how to tear down a transmission. Do you want that or do you want to know that that person can do it for you? Yeah. In most cases, you just want it done. You want it done. You want a reliable source. You want the who, not the how. So when you're studying going, hey, this is the question I got. This is the answer. Okay. This is the solution. People think it takes this long to get XYZ. It doesn't need to or you need to do is this, this and this. If you start giving the solution, you start elevating yourself as the who. You see, if I go online and I start to teach people about how they can do this with their Facebook group, how they can be a better speaker. But if you'd like to work with me and let me define you, then people go, oh, I'll jump with it. People want the easy way now. They want the who, not the how. I can give you a book on how to be fantastic on social or I could charge you a thousand dollars on building up your social profile. Which one are you going to go for? Okay. You see, what you've got to think about is the book you're going to read. Then you're going to start action in it. What, what happens when you first do anything? It shit. We already know that. We've already stated that. Right. No, you're going to spend six months to 12 months getting into your groove. Or you could have someone get you into your groove and save you 11 months. People go for the who, not the how. So as more good people, I suggest you start video. Because you've got all these assets. That's a beautiful thing. You've got these every day. You are getting all this information. But guess what? People don't know what you know. You've got all of these questions coming to you. You should start pushing. And I have a lot of people going, oh, regulations. No, no, no, no. We're not saying that you're selling. We're just asking you to give examples. And if you do that properly, people start finding you. People start sharing it. Because people will go, oh, Jimmy, you're going for mortgage. This guy over here did this video on this answer. Then guess what? People go, oh, I like, can you help me with mine? I'll be happy to. So the thing you've got to do today, stop focusing on your brand, stop focusing on your website, stop focusing on solving, let everyone else brand you. Okay? Because what other people say about you, brands you, what is remembered out? And that goes into something that you say, I don't know if this is in your book or not, that one of the keys to business is not customers. It's building a community. Yeah, you want to, and there's a difference between a customer and a community. Okay? The community is people to get you. People to resonate. People don't want to join you. Think about, okay, I'm going to go out and I'm going to have a picnic on Sunday. Who am I going to invite? You're going to invite people you can share dirty jokes with, drink beer, have a laugh, play hula hoop, do some silly things, play some drunken games at 7 o'clock. That's a community. I want to hang out with that crowd, man. Well, there you go. So you've got to build a community. What you've also got to do is you've got to focus on getting the cancerous element out of that community. Okay? So as you start building a community, there's always going to be people. They don't get rid of them. I'm constantly cultivating harvesting and eliminating within my social circle. I've told you before, it's called a social audit that I do. And I'm constantly doing that and refining the people that hang around. So when I do, and this is the biggest thing that people say about my species, when I host an event and I bring 40 people together, you can guarantee, because I am so focused on who comes through my front door, that when you're inside, you're only going to meet people you get on with. Yeah. Yeah. That was good. And everybody's there kind of, you know, in that shared experience, which helps build that community. Yeah. You've got to find today's key word is community. Some people call it a tribe. I know sometimes I call it a tribe community tribe, not following. But you want people that are involved in it, but building up the community is everything. That's interesting distinction on following, not following, because following doesn't mean people are engaged in involved, right? tribe is involved. Yeah. We'll try, tribe will go to battle for you. You know, let's be blunt. That's what I try this, but tribe will also challenge you. You see, what ends up happening? And this happened to me dramatically. You know, my book came out. And I had no idea if anyone would like it. You know, I got paid very well for my book. And I really just thought, if it's successful, great, if it fails, you know, my mortgage is still paid. I'm okay. So it gave me the beautiful position to be able to release a book, saying what I wanted. I actually released a book hoping that it would create a world that I would want to live in more. Okay. So that's why I put the book together. When it came out, all of a sudden I started to get this tribe. I started getting this community. And when you start getting there, they challenge you to go, oh great, I love the book. But what's next? Yeah. You know, how do we do this? What do we do that? And then all of a sudden the other word comes out, why do you do that, Steve? You start questioning you. And I start going, bloody hell, why do I do that? And then what I've started doing on my Facebook is I start, I try things. I could just told you about this new technology. I'm trying it. I'm about $4,000 into this new technology. By the end of November, I'll probably be about 12 grand into it. I'm not going to reveal it was the greatest success in the world or how I just completely wasted a trip to the Bahamas. And I'm going to help because I want to constantly try things. These people now are actually pushing me to try things, which I can then come back and go, this worked. Go for it, guys. You know, so I find your tribe in your community, push you as much as you push them. You're also a believer in face to face, right? So not everything should be digital. As many times as you can get face to face, even down to this, you know, if it's a sky, if it's a zoom, face time, there's very little excuses now that you can't go, hey, let's jump on the phone. Let's do a face to face, okay? Because so much is said in body language, there's not said in tonality. So just by the kind of grimace, the shoulder shrug, just the way you're standing up, the eye contact, the engagement, none of that is vocal. So if you can do face to face, you'll actually gain more from the communication and the conversation than you will surely from a phone call. No, it's we're not talking about text. So, you know, I say again, face to face, I try to do as much together. I might again, I'm not pitching it, but you know, when I have my events, it's an excuse to get as many people together as I can that I want to hang out with, right? Because your relationship grows, your relationship's nurtured, and I believe that I believe in today's world of technology and AI and Siri and Alexa and all the other stuff. The chatbot society, we need to communicate more with each other. We need to connect more. Right. Do you think people are kind of hungry for that now? Right? Because there's so much of that other stuff that they just kind of crave that. Again, you've got two, there's two movements going out there. You know, there's the movement that are using technology to replace them. You know, you walk into, I call this the cappuccino shuffle. When you go into Starbucks, they order their coffee, they step over to the side and they put their head down and look at that fund. Okay? They don't want to be approached. They don't want to be convinced. You want to basically get arrested, then go into Starbucks and walk up to someone and go, hey, how's your day? They will look at you like you're a leper. Especially if you haven't had your coffee yet. Bingo, but you're both waiting for your coffee. Right. Right. But they look at you weirdly, and what are you doing? I'm starting to have a conversation. I used to do all the time at a bus stop, you know. Right. Now we don't do it. There's those people that are scared. Like, look, let's be serious. How many people actually have the, audio, okay? You give phones again. How many people now have their phone on audio? You know, usually they have it on vibrate, don't they? Right. Right. You don't hear a ring. Yeah. Yeah. When it rings, what does everyone in the room do? They go, you know, it's an interruption. Now, the last thing is you get your backup. It's annoying because you've just been interrupted. And the person picking up the phone, they're also pissed off because they've been interrupted. They pick up the phone and go, hello, and it's their mum. Yeah. And then they've got to go, oh, oh, hi, mum, they've suddenly got a change. Right. Right. Because it's their mum, okay? We don't like that. We are actually now doing everything possible to not communicate. Now, on the other side of the world or the other movement, people are realizing we need it more and more. Because if you ever want to see the slowest technology developing technology in the world, look in the mirror when you brush your teeth tonight, okay? You haven't changed for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years. There's no other technology. You would not buy a phone if it carried the warranty of a human being. It's going to file, it's going to make mistakes. It's probably going to get an injury. It's probably not going to work for a few months. This is human beings, okay? So we hold ourselves to these standards, which are unacceptable. At the end of the day, we're people and more importantly, we're pack animals. We want to congregate in the pack. We want to find a mate. We want to find soul mates. We want to find relationships. I think there's going to be a, I don't think we're there yet, but I think there's going to be a change. I think people are going to go hang on a minute. Do you mean like a revolt? I think there is. I think there is. I can feel, I can feel the underswell of it now. I'm doing an event in San Francisco all based around technology and there's a lot of AI involved in that. And I've been talking to them ahead of my event in November. And they've said that, you know, what we've got now is a saturation, a chatbot society of about 15 to 18%. By 2020, one year away, we'll be at about 90%. You'll be talking to chatbots in most of your experiences. How many times should you go onto a website for car, for software, for a little chatbot pops up, okay? You know, well, it's an automated and AI is getting so advanced. You don't think it is. Look at Siri. Siri, tell me a joke. Tell me a joke. Yeah. We're in a world of orders and transactions. Okay. What I mean by that is like, Siri, do this, Alexa, do this. It does the transaction. It answers commands. It doesn't think Dave Savage came up with a beautiful line. So I've always got to give him credit for this. Do everything Amazon does and do everything it doesn't do. And what it doesn't do is it doesn't create. It doesn't dream. And it doesn't solve delivers. Hey, Amazon, I need to talk about there you go. When was the last time you found a Amazon and said, Hey, I want to talk about which one would you suggest? Yeah. Well, the other thing that technology doesn't do is, you know, create that personal connection, that personal relationship, you know, which is that in our industry, mortgage and real estate, I think the technology is need to fix that mic. Technology is great because it empowers us or equips us to be perhaps be efficient in some ways, but we'll never remove the desire for the human element. Technology is there to replace what should be replaced to allow you to be dominating more of what you do. Now, I communicate. That's the one thing I do. I said to you before, and it's a good segue into my comment. I said to you that I'm known for being an excellent communicator. I'm not. It's just that the world's getting so bad at it. I look good. Okay. And so I use a lot of technology. I use AI. I use flowcharts. I use a lot of different things. Now, this is going to sound like a pitch, but it's not, but I wanted to help you guys. I use a company called Texteful. So whenever I go to an event, at the back of the screen, it has a name, what they call keyword, and it has a number. Play with this. Text the word Sims. S-I-M-S-2-3-3-7-7-7. Okay. You'll suddenly see a dialogue start. That sounds very cool because I get to write what I want you to see. I'm using technology to allow me to reach a wider level. Till the lap on that technology is when I actually physically reach out to you. Okay. So technology is there to enhance you, not to replace you. Now, I wasn't giving you a pitch to actually join my marketing list. I was giving you that information because I use Texteful a lot. I don't own it. I wish I did. But you guys should be using those kind of technologies, those kind of platforms. Every time you speak anywhere, any time you present anywhere, even on a card, say, hey, if you want to chat with me more, text this number here on this chat. It's a technology is a great way of enhancing you, which should never be used to replace you. And I think the downside is a lot of people are using it to replace them. Oh, if I have chat bots and if I have AI, I don't need so many sales people. Wrong. You need more sales people. Yeah. Or they get lazy because they're expecting tech to do their job. Yeah. No, it's like having a car and, you know, expecting for us to say expecting the drive itself. It is about to start driving itself. But, you know, you've still got to, you've still got to be the main element of you. Yeah. All right. So I know we've only got a few minutes left together here. I wanted to ask you this question because I don't know the answer. I know you spoke at both the Pentagon and Harvard. Was it Harvard twice? I did. Harvard twice did the Pentagon. The Pentagon was obviously smart. They only had to do that once. But Harvard, for some weird reason, had me there twice. So I want to ask, what did you speak on at the Pentagon? So the Pentagon, wow, that was an interesting one. Never saw that coming in my life. Yeah. Totally out of that field. Yeah. So they had an event by a guy called Phil Randosi called American Dream You. And it was a program that was put together to help a serviceman transition in out of the military into, you know, civilian life. So what they did was they did this program around the military bases, Fort Hood and all these other places all over America where you would go along and talk to the military about entrepreneurism and just different businesses. And they brought these different businesses in to speak to the serviceman. And I went along and I spoke about how to be an entrepreneur, how to communicate, how to focus on these things, how to develop your passion. And because it's a military base, they videoed every single one of the speakers. And then the Pentagon, we didn't know this. The Pentagon went through all of these videos. Mine must have been on subtitles, but they went through all of these videos and hand selected like from I think about 30 bases that top eight. And they invited them to actually speak to three star generals. Wow. Leaving these are people that push buttons. Yeah. You know, and so when we got into this room, and these guys all came in and they were all in their full of colors. You know, and that stood, well, they gave us the tour of the Pentagon and they took us into these these rooms. But we're now sat there talking to you and they're looking at you for you to help them to say intimidation is an understatement, you know, but yeah, so we did a, we did, we did a whole day's training with three star generals. That's incredible. That is incredible. Oh, yeah, without a doubt. So before we close out, we're going to come back to where people can connect with you, you know, like ahead of the curve and other things you got going. What's been the biggest lesson, if you will, or, you know, thing you didn't, you thought you knew about, you know, the quote, rich and famous, the people you typically serve, or maybe the rich and not famous, right? The elite. What's really surprised you about that, that crowd? Did you know, funny enough, two things. One, which people are rich because they're good at one, or maybe two things. Rest of the life, they're just normal people, okay? And two, the insecurity, you know, it's kind of hard to say that, but they're really good at a widget. They build a widget, they focus on the widget and all of a sudden they got $10 million and they're walking around in Monaco. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's this, it's this kind of Ford complex. And there's this, and they build up this kind of sheen to try and kind of protect themselves from, you know, oh, you don't know my document. Do you know the funny thing is, I've actually had dinners where I bought billionaires together. And they've sat there talking about that first car, you know. And when you got these billionaires going, I remember stealing my dad's Corolla because of this. And most of my clients are self-made. Instead of all talking about, well, you're lucky. I didn't have a car. I had a bus, you know, I used to ride on the bus every day. And it's funny because here's the last thing, you remember being poor more than you will ever be bitch because having wealth removes problems. Having money removes the emotions of desperation and not being able to pay to, you remember these things. You know, like I've spoken to billionaires about, do you remember what it was like when I said, you know, no, no, you couldn't pay pay while on Friday. And I've spoken to some very wealthy people going, I remember running my dad's credit card to be able to make pay well two days later. You know, it's that kind of, they remember that. But having money just removes those emotions, removes those feelings. So it's good to talk to them as real people. Well, so I was just going to ask you to see them as, you know, vastly different than the quote average person. No, there you have it. See, here's the funny thing. And I think this is my secret source. When I when I meet rich people, I'm there to solve the problem. Okay, hey, what do you want to do? And how can I help? You know, and I'm talking to them as them. Okay, and I've always said chase the client, not the checkbook. Okay. So I want to know what's important to you. Why do you want to do this? And I'm talking to you like a normal person. My benefit in me is I'm very transparent. You know, this is it. From this podcast, everyone knows absolutely everything about me. I openly joke that I'm no onion. There's no layers to me. You know, when I'm speaking to someone else, I'm very easy to understand. So because I'm that transparent, I'm low effort. So when I'm talking to a billionaire that owns, you know, a country, you know, they're like, well, that's Steve. Yeah, that's who he is. And guess what? Steve is talking to me as me. And I've had some really interesting people conversations with people. And they've said, you know, you just talked to me as a human being. Right. And I just thought, how sad is that? That that is something that we actually vivim. And we hold a flag up to the fact that two human beings communicated is so extraordinary. It is a boastful comment. So the lesson in there, though, it's a lesson in there, though, for us in sales that are dealing with the public, right, back to kind of what you're all about, what we opened up about, which just being you, be you, be real. Yeah, be real, be transparent. I've often said on my, my presentations, it takes zero effort to be you, zero. Right. Right. I like that. I like that. So stop trying to be somebody else. All right. Let's transition and talk about how you're helping mortgage loan professionals to be themselves and to, right, achieve certain things. Tell me about them ahead of the curve. We're going to put links, obviously, and everything in the show notes, but that's starting October 30th. Yep. What can somebody, why would somebody want to look into that alone officer? Well, it depends if you want to be brilliant. Okay. I suppose that's the first key. About a year and a half ago, six months after the book coming out and me starting again to the mortgage world, I had a few, of course, him to the biggest names in the mortgage industry came to me and they said, look, you know, do you coach? And I did a lot of luxury coaching, but there was nothing specific to the mortgage industry. So I said, well, yeah, let's, let's see if I can help you. And I was looking at it like most people go, well, what's the mortgage problems? Okay. That wasn't the problem. The problem was you, you know, and the problem, whether it be mortgage or many other industries is usually the same thing. How to communicate, how to get your message across, how to be impossible to misunderstand, how to show value, how to charge for the value, how to be seen as a who, not a how, and how to focus on those elements. So we took these people and to be honest with you, I can't use them as a case study to see how we could do. That didn't really, really well. So at the beginning of this year, I opened up to the, I want to the public, but to the mass market ahead of the curve webinar. Okay. It's $1,000 and you also get my 16 chapter online course Sims Distillery. It's actually included in there. That's 300 bucks. So and that's actually included in the course. And over six weeks, I'm actually going to review and educate and develop your social platforms, your tone, your solution, your positioning. And the beautiful thing is that the last time we did it, I think we had 28 people on it. Okay. And I'm expecting more this time, but I get personally involved with you. Now, the good thing is 28 people are 28 different people. So we try to show how to bring the you out of you and how to get other people to understand what you're there for. We teach you how to resonate to the clients that you need, how to go for the desired audience, not the audience. There's a lot of people out there going, well, I need a big audience. You can spend 10 bucks and get a whole bunch of like 12-year-olds from the Philippines following you and that's of no use. You need the desired audience that can afford to buy your property. You can. And a lot of people say, I want to get a box, you know, and I want to get the relationships to be able to get me the bigger deals. Okay. You got to bring value, you got to bring solution, you got to bring ease, and I help show you how to do that. So it's a six week course, and now to get you to where you are now ahead of the curve to your customers and to your raving fan base to become your number one marketing tool. Awesome. And for those listening, if you want to go there now, it's Steve D Sims dot com forward slash ahead of the curve. Links in the show notes as well. Somebody wants to connect with you on Facebook. Where do you suggest they go there? They can go to an entrepreneur's advantage by Steve Sims. That's a free Facebook page. But I'm also under Steve Sims. There'll be a picture of a very handsome board British guy with my dog. So I'll be pretty easy to see there. So they can Facebook message me there. They can go on Instagram where I make my life look pretty. And that's under Steve D Sims. And there's only one in Sims, by the way. Well, the reality is you are everywhere, man. I mean, seriously, I get about like a bad rash. That is fantastic. I really appreciate the time. I know you're really busy, as a matter of fact, you're getting to do some traveling, coming up more speaking gigs. Oh, you've got to hear this. I'm actually in three days time, departing L.A. for Spain, we're on the opening keynote for the International Bridal Convention. Oh, really? Spain. Man, what are you going to talk about there? Well, the funny thing is, again, they all want to be able to, it's all the bridal people that want to do events and floor. And again, it's about bringing in value. If someone's arguing about a price tag, you haven't demonstrated the value. So it's again, all about the art of communication and how so many people have either terrified to do it or doing it badly. I see a whole, you've seen those books before, right? Blue Fishing for wedding planners, Blue Fishing for CPAs, right? Oh, that should stop. You should stop. That's awesome. Steve Stamps, man, I can't thank you enough so much for sharing your wisdom, your experience, and those that want to connect with Steve, you know how to do that in the show notes. So, appreciate you being here, Steve. Cheers, buddy. Thanks for having me. All right. Everybody, as always, we appreciate you tuning in and you know what to do. Like us, leave us a review online and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. 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 if 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 seats, partnering with affiliates, real easy, but that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top elbows, authors, speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market. And as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members, you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months. And we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagemarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call, we'll have a chat. We'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro.