Ep #25: The One Thing Every Successful Business Has in Common

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 Cogill 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. Hey, loyal listeners, Jeff Zimper, welcome to Episode 25 of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Wow, 25 episodes. Hey, if you've been with me for some time, I want to thank you for listening. If you're liking what you're hearing on the podcasts, would you do me a favor? Take a moment and just cruise on over to iTunes and leave us a review, download episodes on Stitcher if you're on an Android. Maybe leave a comment here if you're listening on the blog. But just I'd love to get your feedback on how you're liking these podcasts so far in any upcoming special guests or requests that you might have. So this week, it's a little bit different. It's just you and me. We're getting personal here. And what are we talking about? We're talking about the number one thing that all successful businesses have in place. You want to know what it is? It's this. It's a predictable sales system. That's right. A predictable sales system that provides for you a level of certainty for your business, for your income. A level of peace of mind because you're not stuck on the treadmill. You're not on the roller coaster of loan production and hey, where's my next deal coming from? A predictable system is, if you look at an analyzed businesses and I've done this through a variety of different methods, one of the best is if you haven't read yet, I suggest you check out the series of the e-nith books by Michael Gerber and we'll actually come back to him a little bit later in today's podcast, but every successful business that has sustainability longevity has a predictable sales system. Because unless you have a predictable system, you fall short of your production and income goals. Why? Because if you want to grow your income, and by the way, if you're listening right now, let me ask you that question. Do you want to grow your income? Now if we were in a room and you know, I'd say, hey, how many here want to make more money? Raise your hand. Yeah. Great. A lot of people want to make more money, right? But a lot of people want to lose weight, too. They want to quit smoking, right? They want to be a better spouse, want to be a better parent. But what most people miss and lack in getting to that goal is a predictable system or series of habits of patterns or behaviors that are going to allow them to change the current state to get to the future state. Does this making sense? Great. If you want to grow your income, right, by whatever it is, 10k, 50k, 100k, it doesn't happen by accident, right? And in the mortgage business, basically you grow your loan volume by three ways. That's simple. Three ways to grow your business, right? One, close more new loans, right? These are new clients versus past clients. That'd be number one. Simply close more loans. Number two, close more repeat loans. So past clients, right? And then lastly is increase your average loan amount. So do higher average loan amounts, increase your average size, commission and bonus. Does this make sense? Great. So notice when talking about a system, I'm emphasizing predictable a lot, right? And there's a reason. And that's because to predict the future of your sales, you've got to have some kind of repeatable system in place so you can measure the results. Because if your system for generating businesses completely random and not consistent, well, there's no way you can actually analyze the data, look at the past performance to gauge future results. And this is what we're talking about is achieving predictability in your business. So you can have that level of certainty of monthly production, annual income goals. Are you with me? So let's break this down. Let's take a look at the numbers. If you're able to generate, let's say, just five new loan referrals every single week. So that's in addition to your current quantity of referrals in business. So this is five brand new loan referrals per week. And let's say your closing ratio is 20%. So of five new referrals per week, you're closing 20% of them into actual closed funded loans. So what's the quick math on that, right? Five referrals per week times four weeks equals 20 referrals per month. Twenty referrals per month times 12 months, right, is 240 referrals per year. Like a 20% closed rate or conversion rate on that and that equals 48 additional loans per year or four additional loans per month. So all this breaks out to those five extra referrals per week nets you for additional closed loans per month. So if you close just an additional four loans per month, what would that mean to you in additional monthly income? I mean, if we average the commission you're going to make on those four loans, let's say it's $4,000. So an extra $4,000 off those four loans per month, that's an extra $48,000 per year. Now you're probably making more than $1,000 per loan. So $1,000 per loan is quite conservative, I think. So let's play with the numbers a little bit and this gets pretty exciting. So if you're averaging let's say $1,500 per loan, that's an extra six grand each month or an additional $72,000 a year in your income. Now if you're listening right now and I offered you a raise of $72,000 per year, would you want it? Would you take it? Yeah, that's a pretty good jump, right, to your income. Not many places you can go and get an immediate bump in your salary from which you're currently making to an extra $72,000 per year, right? Now you're closing ratio, remember, you were using a 20% close ratio on those extra four loans per month. So but you're closing ratios, I'm guessing probably better than that. So let's extrapolate this out a little bit further. Let's really get excited about this. Let's double the closing ratio, remember we haven't changed the amount of loans, right? It's still 20 referrals per week and so now let's double the closing ratio from 20% to 40%. So 240 referrals per year times a 40% close rate, that equals 96 additional loans per year or 8 additional loans per month. If you're making 1500 per loan times 8 additional loans, that's $12,000 or $144,000 extra per year. So you can see how the math adds up real quick, right? And this is again, right, just taking some, I think are pretty conservative conversion numbers in closing referrals. So we looked at 20%, we looked at 40%. So at 1500 per loan to grow your income by 72,000, all you need to do is close an additional four loans per month with just a 20% conversion ratio. Does that seem doable to you? So knowing your numbers, here's where the numbers become really important. This is why it's very important to know what your numbers are, meaning how many loans earn your pipeline every month, what's the source of those, what your closing conversion ratios on those, because once you know your numbers, you can predict the future. And you can identify the areas of your sales process, your sales system, right, of making slight adjustments to that, you can then begin to see what the future looks like for you in terms of production and income. But the problem is most of the loan officers who contact me do so because they do not have a predictable sales system in place. And what's the main bottleneck for them? They don't know how to get qualified referrals on a consistent basis. They make phone calls, they fire off random emails, they go on meetings with agents who never convert and they travel around trying to get into offices, get agent meetings, attend networking events, they're frustrated and they're tired. Can you relate? Yeah. Ultimately they can't get the meetings and appointments and referrals that they need. Here's the thing, in talking about getting referrals, normally we think about real estate agents and that's definitely still a prime source of business. It's what I refer to in my book, instant referrals from mortgage professionals. It's what I call an oil well. An oil well is something that once discovered and tapped, it continues to produce an ongoing source of business and referrals for you. That's what a real estate agent is if done correctly. So the problem that is not that getting referrals from agents doesn't work, it works. We know it works, it's worked for decades. The problem is when a loan officer has a random or unpredictable process for attracting, capturing, converting real estate agents to referral partners, when it's completely random, there's no consistency. So naturally you can't achieve any predictability in your income if your actions are completely random. Does this make sense? So Michael Gerber, have you read the series of books called The Emeth Why Most Small Businesses Fail and what to do about it? If you haven't, I suggest you check it out, especially the book in particular The Emeth Revisited. So if you haven't read that, check it out, download it, Kindle it, whatever you need to do, get the audio book, some phenomenal lessons in there from Michael Gerber. And Michael Gerber, by the way, has studied tens of thousands of businesses. I actually did a little bit of Michael Gerber work with Michael back in the day in the seminar business and got a chance to have lunch with him a number of times and pick his brain a little bit. And it's interesting, Michael, if you read the book or get a chance to attend any of his events, watch some of his stuff on YouTube or whatnot, Michael says that a business has three core functions. And these core functions are this, lead generation, lead conversion, and client fulfillment. So whether the business is McDonald's or Starbucks or FedEx or the brand called you, by the way, the brand called you, you are a business within a business as a loan officer. So the three systems that are critical to the success of any company is client attraction, client conversion, and client fulfillment, three key things. And so what he's talking about there is the system is the solution. So you think about any successful company that's had longevity and great successes, they have a system. System McDonald's, they've got a system for attracting you, for getting you in the restaurant for upselling your Starbucks, the same FedEx, the same, they all have a system. How many of you know this to be true, say yes, great. So the system can be the difference between success and failure in your business. The system can be the difference between having fun and enjoying your business or struggling, barely eating out of living and just getting completely frustrated, worn out, tired, and questioning your decision. And I know this to be very true for myself because when I started as a loan officer at country ride back in 2003, I actually had spent some time at a small brokerage shop that bought leads, internet leads, it was a sub-prime shop, and that was a whole different experience. So bottom line is I switched out of there and went over to country ride in 2003. So my story was, hey, I started a country ride, I got my business cards and I was excited to get started. I was like, yeah, I finally had a big company, big name, I can stand behind and I'm just going to set the world on fire, right? I was ignorance on fire as a matter of fact. And my training program, maybe you can relate to this, my training program consisted of, hey, here's your business cards, good luck, hit the bricks pal, go originate some loans. And you relate, was that similar to your training program? Yeah, I had no system, very had no system. So what did I do? I tried to be everywhere, right, chasing down agents, chasing deals, having zero predictability in my production and income, having zero process, right, it didn't go well. I was brand new, I had virtually no agent relationships and after a year I had little success to show for it. And so if you can picture this, right, here I am and maybe you've been here at one time or another in your life, all the pressure is on me for the income for making the money. My wife said home with our newborn son, we had expenses piling up, you know, a mortgage, brand new baby, car payments, food, you know, the usual deal, right? And so we had to take out a HELOC on our house to cover our expenses and real quickly became very stressful. And you know, one day I just woke up and I realized that I've got to make a change. I mean, I had to change something fast. My current process, if you could call it one, which was basically playing whack a mole, trying to hammer down everything that popped up on my radar, I had to change my process. And I realized I just said to myself, literally one day I said, I, if I'm going to get referrals from real estate agents, because that is definitely a core pillar of my business. If I've got to get referrals from real estate agents, I have to get in front of as many agents as possible as quickly as I can to build my referral base of real estate agents. So I decided to try something I hadn't tried yet. I decided to host a class for real estate agents. Now mind you, I had a lot of experience in doing seminars, workshops, teaching classes. As you may or may not know, right? I started my career basically in sales 25 years ago, working for Tony Robbins, doing 90 minute workshops across the country in front of all kinds of different salespeople flying into a city and living in that city for two months at a time. And I would every single day go out and present right two or three times a day through offices of real estate, auto dealers, insurance, financial planners, network marketing, you know, you name it. And so one of the things I discovered was there's a certain, there's what's called the law of large numbers where if you're looking to, quote, fill a room, if you're looking to get in front of the mass, the, the maximum amount of people in minimum time, well, can you get there more quickly by doing it in group versus one on one? Answer obvious? Yes. So I decided to host a class for agents. Now, some of you listening may say, hey, hosting classes for agents isn't that groundbreaking Jeff? And I agree it's not. And no one in my office or my area was teaching agent classes for me to learn from. And so remember, I started as a loan officer with no experience, no training program, no nothing. So what am I trying to do? I'm trying to look around and see, hey, what are other successful loan officers doing? And by and large, they were pretty much were doing the same thing. Of course, you know, some loan officers, you know, had a specialty in the teachers loans back then. And then others had special niche programs that they were working back when we had niche programs, right? And so they were kind of doing their own unique things or they'd already been in the business 15, 20 years and they had a great database that they were working or it already spent 10 years building up their agent relationships. Well, I didn't have 10 years. I had a baby in a home equity line of credit at home. I needed to make it, make sure it happened fast, you know? So it just dawned on me one day, I said, well, okay, I've been doing the open houses, the broker previews, the coal colony, the usual stuff. And I said, well, what if I hosted an agent, a class for agents and try and make an impact that way, right? I'm looking to make a big splash in my area because I wanted to become what? Well, known, right? I wanted to become known in my little circle of agents and become the go to lender. And I wanted to do it quickly. So I hosted my first agent class and I had a guest speaker, his name is Walter Stanford. He was a very successful agent in my area in Long Beach, California and he was a successful agent turned coach. So this guy when I see a successful agent, he was a phenomenally successful agent. He sold a house a day every day for almost 16 years straight. And so he became very sought after as a trainer speaker coach. He just happened to live an hour from me, right? So I invited Walter in, we worked out a deal, I hosted my first class. We had about 30 agents at this class. And he wanted to know what's great about teaching agent classes. All of a sudden, there's a reversal of power, right? You are now in the power position. You've positioned yourself as a go-giver versus a go-taker. You're not asking for loans, you're not chasing agents down, right? You're not pandering, you're not talking about rates and things like that and how fast we close and 10 day close and things like that, which is all fine and dandy. There's something magical actually that happens when you're in front of the room and you're hosting and or teaching an agent class. It's what I call reverse prospecting. So first of all, number one, instead of you chasing agents, agents are now coming to you. I mean, think about it, right? You have a captive audience. You've built a rapport with this audience of real estate agents. You're exchanging value. You're setting the stage, actually, that is your platform. You're first meeting with a group of 20, 30 agents. That's your first qualifying meeting. So instead of doing these ones, he twos the agents, hey, let's grab coffee, grab lunch, chasing them down, having them do no shows for the coffee appointments, now you've got a captive audience focused on you, delivering a valuable message, sharing content with them that's making a difference and the positioning that happens with at the exchange of emotion and reciprocation that takes place is something that's powerful and cannot be duplicated from on any other medium, not online through social media, not on video, as great as those things are, nothing will replace the power of in person face to face eye to eye because the elements that go into building rapport, building trust and like ability, the bulk of what makes that happen cannot be achieved without a face to face engagement. That means belly to belly, not online, you know, face to face is where it's at. Is this making sense, right? So you have a captive audience. You build instant rapport, you're exchanging value and you set the stage for converting some of the agents to attend into referral partners right there. Matter of fact, some agents give you by referrals right there on the spot before you're even done with your class. Now that's fun. And when I started to realize that and that started happening for me, I got addicted. I got committed real fast because I was serious about changing my sales process from a bunch of random actions to a predictable and repeatable system. I don't know about you, but I like it when the phone rings and I get referrals from real estate agents every single week. That makes business fun. That removes the uncertainty and the doubt and the fear about where's my next loan coming from. Am I going to meet my monthly income goals, right? So we're talking about moving from random and chaotic and unknown and uncertainty to a proven and predictable system for generating a steady stream of referrals from real estate agents. And that is teaching agent classes. Yep. That's it. Not brand new, not sexy, not shiny, not the latest gizmo whizz bang, no. It's fundamentals, block and tackle teaching agent classes. It works because the income, the impact to your production and income can be 100% predictable. Now why do I say it can be 100% predictable? Because remember earlier, I talked about the numbers, right? Numbers don't lie. And if you've got a system in a process, you can know what your numbers are. You can have predictability about the outcome. If you follow a proven system, it simply becomes a numbers game. And once you understand that, the pressure's off. It becomes fun. It's exciting because you know every time you teach an agent class, you're putting your machine to work. You're putting numbers, the law of large numbers in your favor and you're putting agents in the top of your funnel into your system and process to know that outside at the bottom of that funnel are going to come a certain amount of actual referral partners. Put them in at the top, a certain number come out the bottom. Do it over and over and over again and you've got your machine, you've got your process. It becomes pretty much like manufacturing referral partners, right? It is a system in a process. It's really fun and cool. So you know with certainty, you'll reach your origination goals, right? So remember the four extra loans per month example I talked about right, five referrals a week, that's 20 loans a month, times a 20% close ratio, that's four extra loans per month, right? Well, I can tell you from experience that getting an extra four loans per month happens a lot faster when you're in front of 20 or 30 agents every single month. It's a lot faster simply because the law of large numbers get in front of more people, put them into a process for capturing, converting, building, and nurturing trust. You're going to get through your goals that much faster than one Z, two Z, right? So here's the other thing, you already know the teaching agent classes is a staple of most top producing originators. You're going to have thought yourself there's a good reason why that is, right? What's the reason why a lot of top producers you read the interviews and listen to them talk? 80% of them at some point or another make teaching classes a part of their business. Why? Because it works, it works, right? And if it works for them, it can work for you if you understand the process and the system. So without a predictable system, any success I had is a loan officer. So before teaching agent classes, think about it. If I had success, if I stumbled across a realtor and they fogged a mirror, hey, you're good enough for me, you qualify, and I got a referral from them, any success I had was from sheer will and dumb luck. It wasn't because I was being intelligent or applying a proven predictable system, right? And here's the thing, sheer will, effort, that may work in the short term, right? Just get out there and put in the hours and make it happen and be everywhere, man. Well, that may get some results in the short term, but in the long term, it's not going to work, okay? It wasn't until I started teaching agent classes that I quickly achieved predictability in my production volume. The decision I made to teach agent classes made a dramatic impact on how many referrals I would be getting from agents every single month. In fact, so much so that I went from zero to 37 million enclosed loans in my second year, starting from ground zero, okay? Now, I know 37 million may not seem like a lot to some of you, but hey, 37 million in production in terms of income starting from zero, that became pretty exciting for me. And especially, besides the added money, right, the thing I treasured most was the amount of free time, less stress, and certainty that I had in my loan origination process. Instead of constantly scrambling to get deals and hoping that the one loan wouldn't fall out, I had dozens of deals in my pipeline. I had multiple agents lined up for me, meetings with them, that is, every single month, without having to do call calls, right, and without chasing agents, I was now in the power position, and I could be very selective in choosing the agents that I want to work with. How does that sound to you, right? How many of you want that? Wherever you're listening right now, give me a big shout out, say yes, I want that, right? So when I started with agent classes, initially, yeah, I had a guest speaker, but soon after, I started teaching topics myself, because that only strengthened my position as a unique and as being a thought leader. And that becomes really powerful when you can begin to do that, because now, again, remember, it's the brand called you, you're building the likability and the trust factor, you're positioning yourself as a thought leader in your local community. So if you're listening to this right now, you may be thinking to yourself that teaching agent classes isn't new or sexy, and you know what, you're right, maybe you're more interested, here's the thing, I'm more interested in what works than what the masses are doing, aren't you? I'm more interested in what's going to give me predictability in my business, is it going to be getting in front of as many agents as possible and adding value and having a process for converting them? That's going to be my road to success, or is it going to be some bright, shiny object because it's social media, is it what not? Not as I said earlier, right? All those different things are tools and tactics and they have their place, okay? But here's the bottom line, teaching agent classes works very well. Why does it work so well? Because the bottom line, the building agent relationships is, it cannot be done online. At some point, you've got to get face to face. Hey, listen, you didn't marry your spouse without meeting him first and you're not going to build a predictable stream of agent referrals if you never get off the bench and into the game in your local market, right? So most loan officers agree that teaching agent classes produces results, yeah, whether you're teaching CE classes or not, that's not the real question. The real question is, do you have a predictable system for attracting, capturing and converting agents to referral partners? See having 10 or 20 agents attend your class is what we call putting agents in the top of the funnel in marketing, right? Well, agents are showing up to your class because they want to hear what you have to say. They're already tenderized and warmed up and ready and more willing to be working with you. A hundred percent of the agents will show up now. But if you, every class you held, if you had 20 agents in that class and if at the end of that class, you were able to convert, let's just say, 20% of those agents to referral partners for agents every time you did a class became referral partners. And let's say every week, four of those agents sent you one loan referral per week. Look at the math. We're almost at the exact same numbers we talked about earlier, four extra loan referrals per week, right, times four weeks, that's 16 extra referrals per week, right? Do the math. Now all of a sudden, you can see that quantum leap in your income that we talked about earlier, right? Adding an extra 50, 75, 120 K to your income per year. It's simple math. It comes down to simply how many agents are you going to get in front of and how fast? Is this making sense? Okay. So I have a question for you. If you knew capturing and converting agents is a numbers game, would you rather sift and sort agents onesy-tuzzy or in small group? See another reason teaching agent classes make sense is because, as I've said earlier, the law of large numbers, I've noted it in my book, instant referrals for mortgage professionals, you may have to kiss a lot of toads to find your prints, right? We all know this. You may have to go through quantity of agents to find the quality agents, right? And again, in other words, it takes time to build profitable agent relationships. You can speed up your results by teaching agent classes because you're multiplying the return on your efforts when you're meeting with 20 agents at a time versus just one. Does this make sense? So another great example of this story I can share with you is Shishank Shikar, who's a podcast interview I did. If you haven't listened to it, go back to the podcast page at Morgan & Marketing Institute and look for Shishank Shikar, right? So Shishank tells his story about how he came over from India with no relationships barely spoke the language, had very little money in his pocket, then he had to figure out a way just like me to get started fast. And he was trying to go out and meet agents at broker-previews and networking parties and all that kind of stuff. You know, he's just one day asked himself, these agents are going to give me a referral. They don't even know me. So he did the exact same thing that I did. And I didn't even know this until I actually interviewed Shishank for the podcast. He actually got a local top producing real estate agent who was willing to host a series of classes on how to be a successful agent and share her secrets and what she has done in her business. And she was a well-known agent and had already, you know, kind of maybe written a book or something like that, but the bottom line is he started teaching agent classes. And he got started, of course, with the guest speaker and then he eventually started doing his own and he became the teacher. But I can tell you if you listen to that podcast, what Shishank tells us is that that one thing teaching agent classes was the biggest catalyst to changing his business. And today, Shishank has listed in the top 200 originators in the country on the Scotsman Sky and it produces over a hundred million in annual loan production volume. And still does classes, agent classes to this day. And again, like I said earlier, why do top producers do it? Because it works. Makes sense? Okay. I get excited about this. Whatever I talk about agent classes because I believe in it so much, I've experienced it firsthand and so many other loan officers have as well. So hopefully by now you're realizing the benefits of teaching agent classes, right? That's pretty obvious. So do you know the number one reason that most mortgage originators don't get started in teaching agent classes? They don't know what to present other than mortgage market updates and mortgage related info. By the way, mortgage content is okay, right? It's maybe a place to start. But if you really want to position yourself as unique and as a thought leader, the mortgage info won't cut it alone. Why? Because they can get that info from any other loan officer in town. I mean, with teaching agent classes, you can cover a wide range of topics that are important to agents. Yes, some E-C-E classes, but don't get whole hung up on C-E classes. Depending on where you're at in the state, there's a lot of hoops to jump through on C-E classes, right? It's very rigid and formatted in how you're going to structure and give the classes and you've got to, right? Like to take role and who's going to handle payments and make sure people check in so they get approved for their credits. There's certain value to doing C-E. It's definitely a part of what you may want to consider. But again, it's not enough because the content, usually for C-E classes, is quite narrow and limited on mortgage financing, for example, right? So topics like business planning, goal setting, social media, digital marketing, credit restoration, global apps, video marketing is so much more, you've got a whole world of possibilities. I'm content that you can be teaching and sharing with real estate agents. So here's an idea. Think about this. Imagine for a moment you became more than just another loan officer for your local agents. What if you positioned yourself as a thought leader by educating agents on topics that they're already hungry to learn about? You see, what happens is now you're building your local platform. You're rising above the sea of sameness. You're no longer seen as just a loan officer. My experience, personally, and interviewing top producing loan officers has proven that the reason most loan originators struggle to capture and convert agents is because they don't have a what, a predictable what? Yeah, a predictable system that generates the number of agents they need to get the quantity of referrals that they need every single month. It's simple math. Get more quality agents equals more quality referrals and loans in your pipeline. The question is, what method are you going to choose to get there? The slow, painful death of cold calls and chasing agents, which puts you in the box of every other loan officer in town, or will you choose reverse prospecting and get agents coming to you in your classes? The first approach gives the power to the agents and puts you at a disadvantage, cold calling, chasing, pandering, hey, just give me a chance, give me your worst loan. The second approach, teaching agent classes, puts you in the power position and gives you the advantage. Does this make sense? Are you with me? Go on. Say yes. I'm listening right now. I can hear you even though we're on a podcast. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, back to the number one reason most loan officers, I speak with a reluctant to get started with the classes or maybe they're not consistent, maybe you've taught an agent class in the past, but you haven't been consistent with it. The biggest reason most don't stick with it is they don't have the content. They don't know what to present, share, teach, they don't have the power points, the notes, the handouts, they don't have the entire system in a box, they don't have time to do the research on the relevant topics and put it together in a very professional way. Most loan officers are too busy to research and prepare a quality presentation for agents, and they're unfamiliar with perhaps how to effectively promote and fill the class. Is that you? Are you in a situation similar to that? Would you want to teach agent classes, but that's potentially one of the biggest roadblocks for you? Well, if so, hang on for a second and come on a journey with me. If you had someone on your team who did the research on the topics most relevant to agents, imagine that person designing a quality professional PowerPoint presentation for you and includes notes. It includes a script and handouts and marketing flyers and you got coached on presenting if that's what you wanted and even help on how to promote your classes and recruit co-sponsors. So essentially all the heavy lifting is done for you. You get to be the hero just by showing up, teaching the class, putting agents through a proven predictable system that gets you loan referrals every time you do a class and long after that class is over. So by teaching agent classes, you truly have a predictable system for generating high quality agentships, relationships, and referrals. So once you implement the system and you understand your numbers, the future looks bright. So bright, you got to wear shades and you're actually having fun. There I say that, working with agents, imagine enjoying, working with agents. Yes, it can be fun when you have predictability and certainty and when you're able to be in control and be selective in which agents you choose to work with or not. Makes sense? So where does that leave us? Well, you may know that for years I've been helping loan officers across the US teach agent classes on a variety of topics. Most of my work up until now has been one-on-one or in very small groups on a limited basis. I've had many students do one class with me and they got such good results. They wanted to continue doing more classes either monthly or every other month, for example. And what I would do is I would do the research on a topic. I'd design the PowerPoint, the handouts, the marketing flyers, the website and the emails, give them a presentation coaching, help them get co-sponsors and more. Sometimes I would even fly in and give the presentation for them. But there's two challenges there. Number one, it's expensive to have me do it all for you. Number two, it doesn't scale well for me. I can only work with a limited number of people in that model. So over the past year, I've been testing out a new platform called My Aging Classes. I've invited just a handful of few select loan officers to participate as beta testers. And essentially, what we created and tested and perfected is a proven process and system to help loan officers teach classes to agents and get predictable results. Meaning, follow the system, you'll get referrals every single time, guaranteed. So it's much like the one-to-one, one-on-one work that I've been doing with loan officers where I do the research on the relevant topics. I design a killer PowerPoint, I give you the notes, the scripts, the handouts, the marketing flyers, and even a video tutorial of the presentation that you can watch and duplicate. And it's all done for you in a box and it's essentially it's a done for you agent class, a complete system. You get everything but me flying out to deliver your presentation. Now, if you still want to hire me to come out and deliver the presentation, let's talk, okay? But, as I said, you need to be in the driver's seat. And this, this My Aging Class, this new platform, this has been in the works for almost this entire year. It's been a true labor of love because if you can't tell by now, I'm passionate about helping you achieve success with agents. And in my humble opinion, there's no better way to attract, capture, and convert agents to referral partners than to consistently teaching agent classes, right? Building an entity, a brand, a platform in your local area. Show me a more effective way for attracting, capturing, and converging, converting real estate agents to referral partners than classes, show me a better way. And I'll do that instead. I challenge you right now. I haven't found one out there. Again, this comes back to knowing that success in sales isn't numbers, right? Once you know your numbers, which is the number of agents you need divided by your conversion rate multiplied by the average number of loan referrals, your production becomes predictable. You'll finally get off the production and income roller coaster, stop chasing agents, agents, and have a real business. Now, if you don't want to work with agents, then clearly this isn't for you. And that's cool, man. There's more than one other way to generate loans, and if agents aren't your deal, then all right, no problem. But if you want consistency in your income, you need a system, no matter what, no matter where you're getting the business from, you need a system. Not a gimmick and not a tactic, but a proven system that fills your funnel, fills your pipeline, generates a stream of loan referrals, loans, right? And in the case of agents, it's got to be, you've got to be in front of agents consistently in front of them, right? People who become referral partners. So if you like what I've shared today and you want to learn more about why teaching agent classes works so well and how you can get started, I'm hosting an informational webinar and you're invited, okay? We've got new content to share with you on this webinar, and we're also opening up enrollment in my agent classes for those who want to get a head start on 2017 and host their first class in January of 2017, if not sooner, and do it with my help. So if you want to learn more, you want to hear more, you want to take it to the next step and understand why teaching agent classes so well, I'm going to be doing an extended training session on this topic. Just click the link below for complete details and RSVP. Just as a thank you, I'll send you my free, ultimate guide to teaching realtor classes. It's basically a short course on how to get started teaching agent classes. If you haven't already got it from the blog, then you need to click the link below, get registered for the webinar, and you get access to it. If you've already downloaded it from my blog, great, awesome, I'd love to hear your comments. So here's the bottom line, RSVP for the webinar training. This will be a training and not just a product pitch, right? It would be an honor for me to share some time together with you because I'm 100% confident that I can help you get more agent referrals faster and easier than you ever have in the past. So RSVP, the link is below. Hope you've enjoyed today's podcast, episode number 25. Please share your comments. If you need to reach out with to me with a personal email, go ahead and send it to info at mortgagemarkinginstitute.com. Otherwise, make sure you're registered for the training. It's limited seating. I'm going to go deeper on agent classes and also talk about a limited enrollment opportunity we have in this new platform called My Aging Classes. So thanks for listening. I enjoy you. I appreciate you and I look forward to seeing you on the upcoming webinar. Take care. Go out and get yourself some business and make it a great day. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to mortgage marketing radio. One more truth in mortgage marketing, get more free training and resources at mortgagemarketinginstitute.com. 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 program membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, attract and convert agents into referral partners. Plus, done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class, getting agents, butts and seeds, partnering with affiliates, real easy. But that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top L.O.'s 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 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.