Ep #2: Why You Need a Blog

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Visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Michael Irvingman, Jeff Zimper, welcome to mortgage marketing radio. Hey, thanks. Glad to be here. Yeah, you know, I've been waiting a while to actually try and get you on the phone. You're a busy guy. And for good reason, you know, I'm looking at your LinkedIn profile here. And I love the summary. It says you teach busy professionals how to generate repeat and referral business using social media marketing and technology automation. You think that's big today? You know what? It's interesting. I've always been a fan of technology. And you know, even through the course of my, in the real estate and mortgage industry, I was always into using technology to be able to streamline my own business. And so over the last five years, when we first took the opportunity with content marketing and how that might be applicable to especially driving repeat and referral business, you know, interesting enough, I thought maybe we were late to the party five years ago, but it's just everything has continued to move towards making it more and more valuable as a way to communicate the way people have bought into social media and continue to use that as a way to communicate with each other. Additionally, you know, even things like Google changing their algorithms to really focus on good quality content have really gone to, you know, point to even today how much even more important it is than it was five years ago when we started. Yeah, that's the great point. And I think anybody who's listening to this right now would probably agree, right? The one thing about technology is constant change. And that's one of the challenges of it is that the, you know, the little white bouncing ball is always moving about, you know, what to do, how to adjust to these different platforms like Facebook, Google, et cetera, that are always making changes. So, you know, to your point about, hey, you thought you were late to the game five years ago, well, heck, you know, six months or a year from now things are going to be even more different. So people need you, you know, I think no matter what time or what year it is that they're actually listening to this. So, you know, before we get into kind of the meetup, right, technology, building a repeat and referral business using social media marketing, which obviously is a very important topic in anybody's overall platform. It's always useful, I think, when somebody's listening, right, to somebody presenting information to get that quick background or so. You have a very interesting background, you know, I call it going from the Army boots on the ground to actually being an origin, a lone originator now, obviously an entrepreneur, with you are the founder, chief executive officer of mysmartblog.com. But how did you get to where he are today? What is that long and winding road? You know, mostly just showing up. I mean, that's in the day, what there was that old that's saying out there, and I don't know the exact quote, but it's like 90% success is just showing up. And I think that's relevant for me, you know, starting out, like I said, I started out right out of the high school, decided I wanted to go into the Army to have way to pay for college and spend a couple of years in the infantry over in Germany during Desert Slorm. And so that was, you know, a lot of that, that model that you just got a total line and show up every day and do the work and set a good foundation for me, moving forward. So, enjoyed the time living in Europe and ended up going to school, University of Oregon and graduated there with a degree in political science, which I've never actually used in any part of my career. And it was a good accomplishment, and I think that's, when I talk to my kids, that's what I tell them is, hey, go for the experience, a lot of fun, you enjoy yourself, you're able to learn some things, and the great confidence build or not to mention a decent resume item if you, if you intend to pass your resume out to other people to get hired. You know, that's a great transition for me. I ended up, you know, finding out for myself that I was much better off doing my own thing and, and being willing to take a little risk starting my own businesses. And even for, I know, we're catering a lot and we're obviously focused on the mortgage industry, which was my background, but, you know, I even looked at my experience in the mortgage industry at a hundred percent conditional officer, you know, I always owned my own business. Even though I might be hanging my license with another company, it was up to me to go out and show up every day to create and make things happen. And I really found that for me, that was the right environment. Moved on, started my own mortgage company, did that for ten years, and, and, and really enjoyed the industries, so much flexibility, great income opportunity, as long as you're willing to do the work and be innovative and separate yourself from the competition. And, of course, five years ago, you know, I found over time as Jeff, as you know, from my past, I had another technology company that was focused in real estate marketing that tied together transaction teams, just like the teachings of guys like Brian Baphini and Joe Stump in their coaching programs. That was my first experience with technology, along with the real estate mortgage space. And I decided to transition full time to technology just over five years ago when I started my smart block. So, it has been a process, but like you said, I think part of it is just being willing to take risk, being willing to, to show up every day and, and sometimes go through the difficulties of stubbing your toe, you know, if they'd try things and things don't work and you get laughed at and people tell you, you know, it'll never work. That definitely started when I started my smart block. People would tell me there's, there was, I talk about the social media elite that said that, you know, in order for it to be effective, you have to do it all yourself. They told me, you know, your cons have to never work. It'll never, it'll never. Well, five years later, we're, you know, I've had thousands of people all over the country do their daily content marketing work and, and proven that it does work. So, it's not in place to be. Yeah. So, what do you think, what lessons or what disciplines came out of your time? How many years have you spent in the Army? Just two and a half duty and then I was three years in the National Guard for that. So, can you look back on that and extrapolate anything from your training, learning, discipline, boot camp, whatever, you know, takeaways from that that still carry through to you today for whether it's, you know, as you said, getting up and dusting yourself off or executing on what you know needs to be done. Is there anything, any, you know, kind of theme or cred still runs for you on that? Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And I'm, when you first asked, I was almost nervous because I was like, oh, what do I remember? But, you know, there is one really important concept that didn't make sense to me as an 18, 19 year old kid when I was in the military as much, because again, I sometimes had trouble with getting direction from people who, you know, were my superiors in the military, of course, it's like, you know, you do whatever they say no matter if you believe them or not. And so, I had some challenges with that, but I actually got a position I was driving for a battalion executive officer for about a year. And so, you know, moving up the ranks of the officer ranks, and again, I was at the time, 19 years old, a PFC in the Army, and I was learning a lot from him, just kind of life lessons. And at one point, you know, I also have this habit of questioning the status quo, questioning why we do things the way we do, and always looking for efficiencies. And that was just an ingrained trait for me as a young person, probably growing up in an entrepreneurial family, being around self-employment the whole time. I was looking for better ways to do things. And so, I would question sometimes the methodologies that were happening around, as we were, you know, going around in different operations through the military. And a great point that this guy, his name is Major Rackley, and he told me at one point, he said, you know, here's the thing, Michael, learning, you know, getting experience in life, anywhere you go, whatever, no matter what you're trying to learn, he said, you have to think of it as climbing mountain peaks. And you're only able to see what's in front of you. You're not able to see what someone who might be further down the road ahead of you can see because they've climbed more peaks at higher elevations. And this was specifically relevant to getting direction from, you know, we were getting directions of battalion, and of course you have brigade above that and then division above that. So, sometimes orders roll downhill, and at the level of battalion even, or maybe company level, which, you know, is a lot of the battalion level, you know, you look at it and you think, man, that just doesn't make any sense. Why are we doing things that way? But you're not seeing it from the level, maybe the brigade commander, or the division commander is seeing it, and all of those pieces of the level that they're looking at from seem that they make sense, at least seem to make sense, from their perspective. And you know, that, I call that peak peak learning now. And here's the deal, that anytime you look into something new, maybe you're not real familiar with it, it points to the value of actually finding an expert that knows more than you do, and understanding that it's time to step back, and actually let that experience, and that expertise, become at least somewhat able to direct you in the right direction, if that makes sense. Because all of us are experts at some level, in types of skills that we've developed over time, but we can't be experts in everything, and so many times there are people who have maybe climbed a certain peak to a higher elevation, and happen to have a different perspective because of the level of experience. And you know, that didn't, again, didn't make as much sense to me at 19 years old. You know, you kind of are so railing against some of that, but now, here I am, you know, after 25 years in business, and you look back and you think, yeah, you know, that does actually make sense. And even today, I seek out people all the time who are experts at what they do, because it makes my life easier to just trust that their expertise is coming from a perspective that will help me grow, and it will also help my business grow. And so I guess that's one of the really relevant things I pass on to people is, you're just getting started in your business, or if you really establish your 20 years down the road, always keep your mind open to people who may have more experience, even not necessarily age-wise, but in specific areas that you're trying to become better at, because they just might be a little bit further down the road and maybe have climbed a higher peak in that particular expertise, and can that pass on knowledge team? Wow, that's great. So that's interesting. So it's a great point in that, you know, we can't necessarily know what's the old saying, can't see the force through the trees. I mean, we're so nose down and trenched in our day-to-day business that, you know, sometimes it takes that outside force who can see, who's been to the other peaks, who's been through the valleys, you know, so forth, that can bring that additional context, if you will, to where you're at in your current life right now. So you're trying to say, yeah, and that actually relates well to, you know, the question I have around, you know, the obviously social media, you know, came on in a big way, I don't know, you know, what's it not been now 10 years maybe, but obviously he's picked up a lot of steam in the last, you know, half a dozen years. And so you've been in business 25 years, you've been in the mortgage space for, you know, a long time having owned your own brokerage, your mortgage loan officer. In your perspective, looking back on your experience of when you first started in mortgage business as, you know, as a sales and marketing professional, what's happened or changed to the traditional sales model that if people don't understand it or get it today, they really need to get and understand that the changes that have happened and are happening to the traditional way that we have conducted sales. Sure, yeah, you know, just going back in looking at the evolution of technology, and I'm going to be specific to the mortgage industry since we're obviously talking to mortgage loan officers right now. You know, we had a fear when when when digital technology first erupted on the scene, Elon came out, you know, there was this big fear that that online productivity was going to take over and eliminate loan officers jobs, you know, and the reality is that that just never came about. It never stopped the fact that a mortgage is one of the most important and largest financial transactions that people will ever get on in their life. And at the end of the day, as human beings, we want to have connection with somebody who we can trust. And, you know, as much that's happened in technology and changed and has caused change, some of those those those ideas or tendencies have stayed consistent as well. And I think that's a good thing that allows us to keep a function and add value in a way that technology can just never replace. And so what's changed though massively, what's really, you know, rocked the world in terms of change is how our consumers, our potential clients, customers choose to educate themselves about the processing general. So not at the time they're going to decide who they're going to use the right to loan application, but it's how they go out and they access and accumulate knowledge related to the idea of buying a home or refinancing a home that's really shifted and has created this necessity almost to have easily accessible information available to people online. And at the end of the day, that's what that's what's really, you know, shifted. I think what we, you know, the use that term paradigm shift was really changed the world of marketing is the level of access that people have literally packing around a super computer in their pocket and can access at any moment anything they want in the world. And so really what that brings back to is at each individual loan officer in order to carve out their, you know, relevance in a local market has to, at the same time that things offline are happening like they get those traditional referrals, someone mentions their name in conversation, which is exactly those who all want to have happen more often, that those are the things that turn into real good transactions that close you ended up with a commission check. You know, at the end of the day, what consumers have been trained to do is pull up their phone, look at that person, what they look like online and they start making a decision of their professionalism based on what they can see. And that points to important things like third party testimonial evidence, you know, high quality design that gives a professional image, a good, you know, relevant content that makes them look like an expert in their space, but not just an expert in their space, also relatable to the average person. All of those things, in inferring our social media is how do you connect with people, well, you know, in marketing, one very basic tentative marketing is that the hardest thing to do is to get a potential client to come to you, the easiest thing to do is reach out and get to them where they're already hanging out. And so all of those things are what has shifted. It's the way that people have chosen to receive communication has changed. And we as a group of salespeople, as a group of business owners, absolutely have to buy into the idea that we're going to make those tools available to people and then do a good job of communicating on a consistent basis, which drives top of mind awareness at the end of the day. That's what builds trust and credibility. And that, by the way, all, you know, interestingly enough, I mean, I guess if my own benefit relates back to the idea of content marketing and blogging as a structure in order to be able to make that happen. Yeah. And so that's a good question is if we can clarify, you know, why a blog and or what's the difference between a blog and a website, then how do they fit into our overall strategy that aligns with what you just described, right? That's how people now seek you out. Right. Right. So, you know, why a blog? Well, you know, a blog really is a type of website. It started out just a kind of single page websites way back when they first came out. And it was a way for the average person to publish online to be able to easily publish information online. We don't have any no programming language, which is like HTML. And then obviously we can't just know things like database driven websites, PHP and mySQL. And all that kind of crazy stuff that most loan officers absolutely have no interest in. But blogging became a simple little way to be able to go out and actually self-publish content on the web that was as easy as maybe working with Microsoft Word. And the difference of what has evolved though, and it's bigger than just that, because what happened is that the internet changed around 10 years ago into this whole world that we now call Web2.0. And a lot of times people wonder, what does that Web2.0 mean? Well, Web2.0.2 in 2.0 means it's two-way communication. It means the web transition from what was much more of a billboard environment where companies could put it up whatever they wanted. It was a one-way conversation of whatever a company wanted to say about themselves or an individual one to say about themselves. And it just blasted that out to the world. It was more of a, the people couldn't actually participate in the conversation. But Web2.0 came about when we started to understand with the web, it created opportunities to get feedback from people. And that's things like Amazon really took advantages early on by being able to track what people did and then make suggestions based on what people that were looking at a particular product, but also be interested in. They were also able to use ratings and reviews to share with us what third party, you third party, the evidence of what average people thought about a product. And I call that the democratization of advertising because it really took power away from companies in the sole ability to tell people what their product was like or their service was like and really put it back in the hands of the consumer. And that started this two-way conversation happening. And again, the difference of blogging or blogs basically, especially companies like WordPress, which is the fastest growing website development platform in the world, it coincided with this idea of two-way communication and allowed average people to get information out to the web. Now, here's what's important. Is that whole two-way communication piece happened at the exact same time? It was birthed at the exact same time that social media also erupted on us and engaged people this opportunity to create connections with each other and communicate individuals irrespective of large companies that have massive budgets to put big technology together. So all of that stuff working together. Now, again, this isn't happening over the course of 10 years, has now ingrained the idea that content is a good way to get to know people online as a way to be able to start the process of building relationship. And so, again, we get back to why I have a blog. Well, it's just the easiest way to be able to, again, publish content. And here's the good news. You don't actually have to write the content and publish it yourself. It's a good way to be able to share content, but most importantly, is it's the only type of platform that can effectively distribute content from that site, from that center of the hub, out all of these different environments, things like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and YouTube, and Google Plus. Just lots of different social networks. You can actually distribute content or work in tandem with your blog. So you have one point of entry and be able to distribute stuff through a lot of different networks. And that, of course, is where those folks are hanging out. So the reason that you have a blog is it's a single point of communication. Use the opportunity to get that communication into the onto the web, more importantly, it automatically distributes that content out where your potential clients, potential customers, and your current sphere of influence are hanging out and they're willing and interested in receiving communication from you. Wow. That's a great answer, man. I think, you know, the one, well, let me ask you this as well, because I get what you're saying. And obviously, I think still what lingers is this. Okay, so I understand a blog, you know, connects me on social media, allows me to have that two-way communication. It's a way for me to share and distribute content. So does that then mean I don't need a website? Because I still have like, you know, my company website's got a link to me on there. So I should have something like completely separate or on my own that allows me to do all those things you just said. Is that what I'm hearing? Well, here's the, yeah, here's the thing, is most, most company websites. And for the right reasons are built on old technology. And they're built on the old technology because there's the purpose for it. In other words, those traditionally built websites that are database-driven websites using things like PHP and MySQL to be able to grow them and scale those websites. There's a purpose for it. You can, you can replicate, you can replicate a lot of really, I can call you, put a million dollars for the technology and functionality into a website platform and then you can replicate it for thousands of people at virtually zero cost by using that type of structure. So there's a purpose for doing those types of things and that's why companies generally gravitate towards those types of websites. Now, here's the problem is those types of websites, and this gets right down to the ones and zeros of programming, is those types of websites, website platforms simply don't have the ability to do what we're talking about in terms of distribution of content that site by WordPress do. And the reason is that the WordPress again evolved. It was created and has evolved in combination with social networks. So it was built in order to interact. There is no bridge between the two. There's no, like physically they're just separate. So here's the best application is you have to see what's the purpose of the technology that I'm using. And the purpose of blogging and content marketing is really considered out there. It's pushing content out to the world, getting information out to people, distributing it in a way that's easily for them to access in a way that they choose to receive communication. There's a real specific purpose there. It's almost like how we use mail newsletters, right? The postal service every month out to our client base, the same thing is happening with blogging and content marketing, especially distributed through social media. So there's a very specific purpose for it. That doesn't mean that you can't cross like a blog website, go down the right foundation like WordPress, over to your main website and link the functionality together. So it's kind of a seamless interface for the consumer once they're on your site. It's easy to do that. And there's good reasons to continue to keep your company website because of all that secure technology, like an online loan application, which is an industry in and of itself trying to keep up with the changes there and make sure that everything is secure. Most companies that focus in one area or they don't want to try to be everything to everybody is just too difficult. So it's a good idea to keep that company website. Use the functionality that's available there and just cross link the two together. So if you really look at your content marketing strategy as its own kind of standalone silo, there's purpose for it. And here's the good news. It's always to help people on the web. It's not either or, it's and more. The reality is the more indexable sites that you have. I mean, through a certain reach to reasonableness, right? You don't want to overdo it here. But there's no downside to having two different websites on the internet as long as both well done, have content that's relevant and interesting and won't run people off and won't say hit the site. So you know, it's like it isn't really either or it's and more. You really have to step back and say, what's the purpose of the tools that I'm using? And let's make sure that I'm investing in the right type of tool in order them to execute. And so hopefully that answers clearly enough. But really it's probably best strategy. No, it's a great answer. And I pressed you a little bit on that just because I know some people still struggle with that answer. So very well done. Which leads us to the next discussion and observation. I'm sure you have that I've seen out there. I know more many mortgage originators are still on the fence about or maybe have done, have dipped their toe in the pool. But essentially, you know, why don't more loan officers use blogging or integrate the various platforms we've talked about social media, Facebook, etc. So what do you see as the most common challenges or reasons why objections, if you will? More loan officers aren't really taking advantage of this type of platform. Sure, sure. You know, we obviously, we obviously talked, had this conversation with thousands of people all across the country. And so, you know, we have a pretty good idea of what most people don't. And it really comes down to three things. I'm going to go through those, those three will be real quick. The first one is softly darn expensive in most cases. You start going out and trying to find a developer to build a full WordPress based website. And I'm talking to a real developer that actually develops a product that works and it's designed well, you know, so it makes you look like a professional. You know, it can be thousands of dollars, two to three thousand dollars would not be uncommon to spend just to get a site built. And the big problem is once it's built, and even if you're willing to write a check, they hand it off to you and then it's left to you to actually, you know, go process of maintaining it. So maintaining website, taking care of all the security, you know, stuff updates, the platform updates, and then you get into things of who's going to write the content and when is it going to be written and who's going to upload it and who's editing it to make it look professional. And then, you know, doing all the social media stuff as well. So both it's expensive in time and in money when you first get started, but then it also becomes expensive in time when you're trying to maintain it and it competes with all the other more important things that you need to do on a daily basis in order to keep those loans moving through the pipeline and deliver, you know, world-class service to your clients. So it becomes this expensive factor that runs a lot from the very beginning. The second thing is it links to it and I mentioned is it's time consuming. If you try to do all this yourself, if you were going to try to learn how to build these things yourself, you're going to sit down and write content yourself, that becomes a real, it sucks up a lot of your time. And I think a lot of people just aren't willing to spend that kind of time to be able to do this because it's not like a typical advertising format where you can say, hey, I'm going to spend next dollars, I'm going to spend the next money and you get a certain number of leads based on the dollar spent. And this is one thing, maybe we can get a little deeper into this. You really have to reformat the idea of why you're doing this in the first place and what success looks like when you're doing it. So it's hard for people to like get a tangible, pungent idea in their mind of what the investment should be and how much time or money they should spend. And in the last piece, the third thing is it's just too darn difficult for a lot of people. A lot of us who are in the sales industry, we're drawn to that because we like interactions with people, we like conversations, we like helping people through a process. And a lot of times we don't like sitting in a computer, banging on a keyboard at 2 o'clock in the morning, not being able to figure something out. I always call that the 2 a.m. bang head against the screen moments, you know. And for any of us that have tried extended technology, we all know, you know, know those moments and how frustrating they are. So it's just it's technical in nature and it's not something we really focus on. And that really pointed to the opportunity. Honestly, when I started the company, it came out of a high level consulting conversation with a very high producer down in Texas. And you know, he was trying to find a way to reach these opportunities there, but he was doing that. He was trying to build his own technology and trying to coordinate graphic design and do all this stuff. And quite frankly, he was fed up, you know, he was just tired of, he saw the opportunity because he was about ready to give up. And because of my experience, both in the industry and with technology, we talked about it and I said, I think we can build a solution. And we did and we launched it and it ended up, we saw it worked and so it ended up with a creative, very big company. And I think that happens more often than not, the not is companies that created based on, there's a void in the market. There's something that needs to be filled and it really answered those issues of being a low cost way to be able to get started and have something that really looked great and performed, and requiring zero time investment at all. And then also though, you know, not having that technical difficulty factor because we just do it all for people. That's not trying to have a commercial there. I'm just saying that those are the three main things that happen in the last one to segue. I mentioned is this issue of framing what success looks like. And I don't know if you want to be completely deeper in that or not, but that's actually a really critical factor. Yeah, I was going to ask you that. That was a nice nugget. I was going to ask you, you know, you talk about framing your success. It's in also, you know, what expectations should someone have if they are, you know, deciding to launch a blog? Sure. So here's the thing is that I get this question all the time. So in fact, I was just talking to really someone this morning about it. And they say, you know, if I invest in this, how long do it will be until I get to the top range, you know, search engine rankings? Or, you know, how long's that to wait until I get lead in the door? They're going to be able to close. And so my standard answer on that is that, you know, there are strategies in online marketing that you can definitely go through. Searching optimization is one of them, getting to the top of the search engines, things like doing online regeneration that's purely simply online. But here's the reality of it. In statistics approved in the sort of years, over 75% of all transactions nationwide are done through reading referral business. That's fear of influence marketing. Getting the soldiers in your local market about talking about you in the offline conversations. That's what's happened historically in the past, what's happening today and what's happening in the future. Less than 10% of all transactions close from purely online-generated leads. And so there isn't a huge market of those that are available. They're very expensive to get to. It's like fishing in a very small pond. And not taking advantage of the very big pond. Now here's the challenge. I'm in online marketing and online media industry. So it sounds kind of counterintuitive that I'd be telling people, hey, online marketing, purely online marketing is really not the right strategy. And the reason I'm saying that is that it's not framing the conversation correctly because the best application of your online marketing strategy really is to support and amplify what you already know works offline, at least at the beginning level, right? So when you're first framing, when you're first building like what your initial strategy is going to be, you have to look it and say, when I look at my business, I'm already successful in the industry. I'm already doing a certain number of transactions a month. And I simply want to grow that or I want to maintain my position or continue to grow my business. How is my current business happening? And if you're honest with yourself, you're going to look at it and you say the last seven out of ten transactions came from a referral or repeat business or I was at a networking event and met somebody. It was a relationship that caused that deal to happen. And so when we look at how we use blogging and marketing online, at least at a foundational strategy, how do we then get that to happen more often? And the way that you do that is exposure. It's building top of mind awareness with both your current spirit of influence as well as then expanding that and growing your audience. We call that building local celebrity. And you do it by being present in the areas that people are already spending their time and paying attention. So that seems like why Facebook becomes important because it really still is the 900 pound gorilla in the social space. And there are great ways to be able to get inexpensive traction and a lot of traffic using things like simple Facebook as once you have a content marketing strategy put in place that's happening and you get to leverage all of that. And the good news is all of that relates back to continuing to deepen relationships with people and continuing by creating that top of mind awareness is what ends up having them when they go to work and they hear someone that needs to buy, sell or refine into house. Your name comes up with them in that conversation. That's because of your phone or ring. So at the end of the day, it's kind of circular in nature. But what the best evidence that your online marketing strategy is working, especially in the content marketing space or social media marketing space is that you end up hearing offline about it. You end up hearing people saying, man, Jeff, I don't know what you've been doing, but I see you all the time. I see you everywhere. You know you're in my Facebook news feed. I see you in, I'm linked and you have updates. You know, I get your email newsletter that can by way automatically be tied to your blogs and send out great quality content consistently and do it completely automatically. So that's the best indication that your online and social media marketing is working. And here's the thing. When you look at the difference, if you were going to spend, if someone looks to come to me and say, hey, I want to run an online regeneration campaign. I want to build online sales funnels in order to do that. And by the way, the reason that we know how to do that, this is a large way of how we market my smart blog. So I've become an expert over the last five years in running these online sales funnels. But if someone were to come to me and say I want to run in a mortgage industry, I want to run online sales funnels or I want to get to the top of the search engines, we'd be talking about a budget of thousands of dollars a month. And I'm not talking one or two. I'm talking three, four, five, ten thousand dollars a month in order to promote a tell that we can effectively build that system and then run enough traffic through it to get leads that end up at the end of the day converting into sales. And by the way, there's also an incubation factor on that of anywhere from six to twelve months. So you'd have to be spending that budget every month for six to twelve months before you really start to see tangible evidence of success. You can compare that with literally spending a couple hundred dollars a month in a budget on a good quality content marketing strategy. In addition to running maybe a hundred or two hundred dollars a month worth of Facebook ads, get really high quality targeted focus traffic coming through the absorbing good quality content which builds a relationship with them and start to elevate those offline conversations which can turn into transactions right away. You can run that campaign for years, a couple of years, even in most places in the country on one transaction after a couple of years of doing that kind of exposure, you know, it will either have paid for itself for likely doubled the investment over that entire time. And by the way, you've covered the base that you know needs to happen anyway. You don't want to do it yourself and you can just outsource and automate the process. So it's really framing that. Just understanding that the best, again, the best evidence of success of your online marketing is really hearing about it offline. If you start hearing back that people are seeing you and you're getting people saying that they're seeing your content out there that you know your systems are working. Yeah, that's a great point and a great kind of summary of the big picture overall strategy because it's really multiple things are happening simultaneously there. You know, one of the things that just clearly you're pointing out in your offline strategy is you've got to make sure that you are driving awareness for your online presence when you are engaged offline, networking, meeting with agents, face-to-face, past out of base, lunch, coffee, whatever it is out at a party, you know, on your business card, whatever it is that you're using, you know, as a kind of a leave behind or obviously in your talk track, right, directing people to your online presence, your blog, your Facebook site, whatever it is. The cool thing about a blog is as you referred to earlier, it's really, you know, kind of the hub of everything and it's a single point of destination that you can drive people through that connects them to all those other ancillary properties like Facebook, for example. So that, you know, you can connect and engage in a deep way there versus just a static website which really doesn't offer much engagement. Yeah, let me branch out. I wanted to mention one thing because I've mentioned this to clients before too and it's just something that's important, especially, you know, you never know who's going to hear this, but you know, a long time ago, so I was a member of Loan Toolbox when it first came out, September being those guys did such a great job putting that together and you know, there was a perfect loan process, I don't know if you remember that, but I'm sure you can do it actually. But it was like this educational thing and there was like a page five of the 103 at the time, you know, where it was, you know, there's set of questions that you take people through to deepen your relationship with them with an application. Let me tell you something that a lot of people ask us, you know, how do I leverage social media more? I don't really don't want to have to participate into that much. I see it as a distraction. But how I do it, the point is when you have someone sitting there at your desk going to take in loan application, what if it's just even a approval call? A great way is to develop a script where you start to engage people in social media and linking up with them in some way right at that point at first contact. So if I'm sitting there with someone at my desk and I have an email newsletter program put in place, then I'm immediately as part of my talk track, like you just said, at the end, going to say, hey, a great way for us to stay in touch in a way that I deliver big quality content over time is to my email newsletter. How do we just get you signed up right now? And you actually go to your website and fill it out with them sitting there. And they're now lined up. Same way is like, if you're worried about people, enough people, life in your Facebook page, while you're at application, have them pull up their phone, pull up Facebook because you know that it's on there, have them go directly to your Facebook business page and like the page right there. In addition to sending out right after that application, send out a LinkedIn connection request if they're on LinkedIn and get connected. Here's the reason why is once you have those connections in place, people rarely disengage. They rarely stop those connections. And the beauty of an content marketing and social media and dripping content over time, the same way again, going back to the newsletter, mailed newsletter, which far and away over 15 years, the most effective advertising mistake that I ever did because I did it consistently. If you simply put those linkages in place and then you have a strategy that automatically drips on and through those networks on a consistent basis, people generally will never disengage and you'll have another way, another avenue to stay in front of them consistently. But you have to take action. You have to actually even us as a company, we'll automate the entire process on the back end. But what we can't change is there has to be a level of execution on the front end, which continues to grow that database, grow that sphere of influence because the larger that sphere of influence is and the more consistently you communicate with them, develop that top of mind awareness, build credibility over time, the more effective all of those advocates in the marketplace are going to become. And I just want to make that point that as I take away, if you do nothing else, if you have a your Facebook page and LinkedIn profile set up and you don't want to set up a blog at least start connecting with people through these social channels and figure out a way to consistently develop content or get content or information out and be updating people through those networks because it's incredibly powerful. There's no additional costs. It's not like Lichten and stick in a stamp anymore. And it is the way that 9 out of 10 people are choosing to receive communication these days. Yeah, that's a great point. And you know, that's funny. You mentioned the mail newsletter. I know this people still out there doing hard copying newsletters. I think it's like you said, it's the what's the preference for how they receive communication. Oh, one thing I wanted to point out too, we talk about success metric and how do you measure success in social media. And you know, like you said, some people look at it as noise and distraction or whatever. And the other thing I see people do is, you know, they get all down and bummed out if they don't get a bunch of likes on their page, whatever. And we should probably at some point circle back and do a class just on Facebook itself because there are some strategies for getting, you know, top of mind exposure in Facebook. It may it may not be just having a static page, right? There's other things that we can do, such as running very expensive targeted ads that come up in the feeds. But I would just say, and I'm sure you would agree to this as well, you know, as far as success metric, don't judge your success based on what you're talking about Facebook specifically, you know, how many likes you're getting or whatever because that's not the success metric. The success metric is, right? Having that online presence at destination, so that you can stay engaged right through relevant content and all that would be, right? Know that you're in that stream of awareness, if you will, where most of the people are living and searching online today. So you can be top of mind when, you know, mortgage-related stuff comes up for them, or they know somebody at work, friend, relative. If you're not in, if you're not, you know, oh, if people don't know you exist, you're that old thing we call secret agents, right? So when I was teaching classes at real estate agents, this real estate agent trainer, one of the times asked this question, he goes, what's what's better to be well known or to be worth knowing in your business? And the right answer is both. Obviously, you want to be a quality individual and be worth knowing, but the truth of the matter is, you got to be well known. Like you said, I see you everywhere, right? You're in my Facebook feed, you got your newsletter, you're on the LinkedIn profile, so on and so forth. So if you're not, you know, if you're not, if people don't know you exist, then how can they ever, how can you ever be top of mind when it comes to, right? Getting mortgage referrals, etc. Exactly. Yeah, I know that's such a great point. You know, it is. Yeah, so all right. So we're almost out of time here. I know you're busy, you got another appointment stack death. I want to kind of close it out because this was only a class in and of itself. So thank you very much for sharing. I guess one of the things I think about is, you know, you as an entrepreneur, you're busy, obviously, managing a lot of things, spending a lot of different plates. What is for you? How do you manage, you know, because we've talked about this with the loan officers, right? It's like they, you know, they don't do social media because they got too many other things on their plate to do, loan closing, spending, etc. What's a productivity tool or a habit or a daily ritual that you use consistently that has a big impact on your daily productivity? Well, I tell you, crap done, Michael. Yeah, yeah. Luckily, I have a good team of people. It's one of the things that helps support me on a daily basis. But, you know, here's the thing is, you know, as I built this company over time, I really focus on, and by the way, the core of my smart blog is automation and efficiency. And we use tools like infusion soft and, if I know you're familiar with infusion soft, as a tool that runs our entire business. And lots of the stuff that you would normally require additional bodies, we actually are able to automate processes that do the work for us through technology. And that, I think, has probably going, there's two things. Number one is, I go back to what has been consistent through my the entire process of my career, 25 years of the different things that I've done. And that's simply I show up, you know, so many times, you know, people would, you know, in the mortgage industry, hiring and training, loan officers, sometimes it's a revolving door. And, or, you know, you see people coming in and out of the industry and they want to go play golf midweek and they want to, you know, do have fun and do all this different stuff. And you know, I was always that guy that was just steady at it, you know, he just show up to work, you know, treat it like a real job. And, and not to say you shouldn't have fun and free up some time to go do, there's some time flexibility that comes with doing a great job and building the right type of business for the great foundation. But showing up has been critical for me. That's just the one thing that I've always have done well was being able, being willing to go through and, and either every day and solve problems and how people get through their problems and, and, and do the work. But the other thing that's most important, I think, even, you know, well, it's not most important. It goes hand in hand with that. Is it, you really want to be able to achieve a high level of success. You have to focus on the highest investment you see your time. And for me, I'm an innovator. So, I look for gaps in the market and I find solutions for those. And then I do, I try to figure out the best way to tell that story. Now, getting an impunch in the keyboards, although I did that at the beginning of the company I had, because there was no one else who couldn't pay anyone to do it. So, I had to do it initially, but then it's understanding that you have to get other people to do the things that aren't in the highest investment you see your time, so that you can continue to focus on what those really high dollar activities are. And then, and then execute only on those things. It's possible. It's not to say that sometimes you have to wear multiple hats and things change, but you really want to focus on that. And so, the number one way, by the way, that you can do that, even better than hiring great people is finding tools, especially technology tools that will streamline and automate processes that are repeatable. And if you get what I'm saying there, it's the number one thing that can lead you to literally growing a multi-million dollar company, even if that's a multi-million dollar brokerage or multi-million dollar production, you know, pipeline in your mortgage business. But you really have to find out what are the most important things that have to happen on a consistent basis, and then what types of tools can I use that eliminate the failure point of a human being have to interact with it. And that, of course, is one of the basic tenets of our business, is what we provide to our clients. But it's also what we do internally. We say what things are going to happen on a consistent basis, and how can we put a process in place so that it will happen exactly the same every single time, and no one has to actually physically get involved with it. If that works, you know, and again for us, we use software called FusionSoft. We have other tools, like scheduling tools that we use that tie together with our calendaring application, and allow someone for instance to go to our website and schedule a demo. They can just pick a ton that works on their calendar, automatically syncs up with our calendars, and lock it in for somebody. So using tools like that, technology tools to drive productivity is I think the most important thing. Okay, great. And before we close it out, how do people find you if they wanted to learn more information about my smart blog and you know, look into potentially blogging? Yeah, well, the best thing I think, go to mysmartblog.com. It's our website, and we've got a ton of information there. It's available to you. Lots of testimonials. We use, we really believe in that third party testimonial evidence, ratings and reviews. You know, we have audio testimonials and video testimonials there. So lots of ways to be able to hear what other people are saying about their experience with our company. And then of course, there is the opportunity right on the website as well. Just click a button to schedule a demo. I'd be happy to get someone online with you and do a screen share. And I get all your questions answered of how this can help you grow your repeat in the firm business as well. Awesome. Well, as you know, my intent here with Morgan's Marketing Radio is to provide direction, to provide, you know, access to tools and resources that I personally have vetted out that I believe do make a difference. Our authentic and our worth, you know, taking a further look at. So not only do you provide one of those tools in mysmartblog, but you also provide, as I think everybody's heard today, tons of education and context around, you know, is this the right tool to execute in my individual business as a mortgage professional. So if anybody wants to find out more about Michael, obviously you now know how to do that in mysmartblog. So thanks, Michael, for making time. I know you're busy. And as I said, we'll probably circle back in the near future if we get enough people letting me know they want an extended Facebook class or something like that. Yeah, you know, I'd love to do it. Obviously, you and I have talked about this before, but yeah, very inexpensive ways to be able to get very targeted local traffic that's segmented breathically. And it's really, it's the biggest opportunity out there for people to take advantage of even today. So you'd love to do it if people are interested. Let Jeff know and I'll be happy to come on and share some of the things we found over the last few years. You bet. Well, thanks everybody for listening to mortgage marketing radio and we'll see you on the next one. Make today a great day. Bye for now. 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, attracting 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. 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