Ep# 3: Personal Branding Mastery: Tim Davis

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. This has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. I'm brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in Mortgage Marketing. Welcome to another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. This is your host, Jeff Simper. I am very excited for today's episode, a guy who has been on my target list for some time, very busy, but also I think a guest that you're going to love that we have because just so many great nuggets of information to share. So without further ado, please welcome my good friend and the guy with the awesome jacket, Tim Davis. How you doing? Jeff, what's going on, my brother? You know, I always like to say live in the dream, my friend. So thanks for making time, I know you're incredibly busy. You are doing so many good things in the mortgage space right now from being, you know, national sales coach at movement mortgage to what you're doing, you know, as far as branding with personal branding mastery and stuff, man, how do you manage it all? It's a good question, you know, a lot of people know more about dancing with the stars than their own dreams and goals. I mean, I know it sounds funny, but it's true. I mean, the reality about it is, I don't know if you can hear my dog in the background. I can, I love it. I got too much. I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that. No worries. But seriously, in all reality, I mean, most people would rather sit down and watch dancing with the stars or episodes of TV than really work on their goals and their dreams. And I'll tell you another thing too, Jeff, most people grossly underestimate, and I mean grossly underestimate the amount of time, energy, effort and connections you have to put in to make whatever you're working on a reality. Hmm. Okay. Are you seeing that every day? Because it sounds like you've got a cup of close and personal experience with that. You know, you're working with mortgage professionals and agents, of course, across the country. So what are you seeing out there that gives you evidence of that? Well, I mean, after being in this game, 22 years, right? Renemone shops working in the industry, moving over to the coaching side of things. Yeah, I mean, you see it all the time. You'll see that somebody will make, say, 10 connections in a week, and I'm like, that isn't even anywhere close to where you need to be to get to your goals. I have a simple philosophy, and I'll give it to everybody that's listening on the, on the show today. I teach this to all of our loan officers and our coaching sessions, my philosophy is simple. Every day before 11 a.m., you have to originate one quality loan. It's going to close in the next 30 days. Is that simple? So when your feet hit the ground and you've gone through your morning routine and you start your prospecting, you've got to have a systematic prospecting guideline that's going to arrive at a quality loan by 11 a.m. every day, because that's the only way we get paid in this business, right? I mean, if you're not making loans, you're not making money. It's that plain and simple. Email doesn't make you money, sending direct mail, but it doesn't make you money. Nothing makes you money, but originating alone. So what you're doing activity wise must lead to that end. And if it's not leading to that end, you're going to have a small pipeline. Okay. So a couple of things you've mentioned there, you know, direct mail doesn't make you money, email doesn't make you money originating alone, makes you money. So I think everybody gets that and wouldn't disagree with you. I think, you know, to your point about, you know, have a loan originated by what 11 a.m. you said every single day? Was that it? Well, 11 o'clock every single day. Okay. So I'm a loan officer. I'm sitting here. I'm hearing that and I'm thinking, yeah, right. How the heck am I going to do that? So what I'm getting at is, you know, the things you talked about that don't quote unquote generate a loan email, whatever, well, well, don't aren't actually originating alone. It's those avenues though, though that get there. So, you know, you're the personal branding guy. You're a guy who obviously believes strongly in, everybody has to have a brand. As a matter of fact, one of the things I see on your, your Facebook pages, you know, if you're not publishing, you're in trouble, right? So what are those activities then or those systems that that loan officers can set up that you're helping them set up right now through your coaching at move and mortgage that are generating that or originating that loan every day at 11 a.m. Okay. Well, let's just start at the basic fundamentals. Every originator needs to take an honest assessment of where they are. And what I mean by that, they really need to look at it and say, how many people know that I'm in the mortgage industry, how wide are my connections, how well known am I in the marketplace? Right? Because at the end of the day, there's a lot of ways to originate alone, but one of the best ways to originate mortgage loans is through your personal network. And if that, and if a lot of people don't know you, then that's where you have to start. You've got to expand getting known. It's that simple. I have a pyramid. Okay. My pyramid has three levels, Jeff. The bottom level is to get known. That's your responsibility. Right. Every day, you've got to take it upon yourself to expand the number of people who know who you are and know what you do, right? And then the middle level is when you start to get opportunities, opportunities come your way. People send you referrals and you've got to be really good there. You've got to take thorough applications. You've got to set proper expectations because in that middle level, it's where trust is built. Right. Right. And the only thing any of us want in life when we purchase from a service provider, all you want are the results. Okay. So in that middle level, when you get opportunities, you better deliver results. That means closing on time, doing what you say that you're going to do, setting good expectations, being a great interviewer on your loan applications, just getting the job done. The more you do that, then you get to the top of the pyramid, which is people know you for getting results and you start to get more referrals naturally and virally because people in the marketplace go, geez. If you want your loan clothes and you want it closed on time, you better call Jeff. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that makes sense. In your experience now, doing this for many, many years out there and as I keep alluding to you right, you're coaching a lot of loan officers. So you're seeing this on a daily basis. Which of those three are the biggest points of weakness for most of the loan officers you see out there? The base, getting known. And why do you think that? So that's been the problem forever, it seems to be. Yeah. So why is that? I mean, I think everybody knows that, right? They're like, yeah, I got to get more people to know who I am, right? So why is that still the biggest problem? Yeah, because people hesitate and they take way too long to get ready. There's no song, one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, three to get ready, three to get ready. And most people's records are stuck on three to get ready, three to get ready. And they'll say, well, what do you say to people and where do you find people? And all of that, all these questions and I'm like, gosh, you know, at some point you've got to really sit down and think through this. You've got to think through this, you are in sales, right? And you should be the most well-known originator in your marketplace. You should set out a goal that says, you know what? I'm going to make myself popular in our branding seminar classes, Jeff. We talk about high school yearbooks to kick everything off. Everybody has, hopefully, been to high school or knows what a high school is or underneath the gun they could spell the word high school, right? That's a benchmark for entry, by the way. It's a benchmark for entry, right? Spell high school. But in all honesty, you remember the yearbook. Now the yearbook had the inmate line up and that was page after page after page, right? That's where you would find me. I was an inmate line up, okay? And then there were special pages in the yearbook dedicated to most popular, best dress, most athletic. And we've all, at points in our life, referred to high school as a group, high school was the time where it was the popular crowd or the popular kids. We all heard that terminology. Well, listen, business is no different. If you're unknown in your market space, then as Zig Ziglar said, you know, sells people that are not known have skinny kids. Yeah, I love that one. I mean, yeah. So who's responsible for making it known? I mean, I don't, I haven't yet to meet anybody who has a person in their city that comes by their house, rings their doorbell, jerks them out of bed, puts them in the blues brother mobile with a big loud speaker on the top and drives them around the city going, hey, come on down. Steve Jeff sent for a great loan off, sir, you know, nobody does that for you. Yeah, that probably wouldn't work well anyways. I don't know, right? But I used to know an accountant in the music industry, he said, Tim, there's no bad, such thing as bad publicity. Yeah. Fair enough. Hey, but, but regardless, so it's that originators responsibility to get known, right? They've got to get known by the real estate agent community. They need to get known by the builder community. They need to be built in a database of people within their sphere of influence. They need CPAs that know who they are, divorce attorneys, financial planners. Too many originators have like one funnel and that funnel of business consists of five people who know what they do. Yeah. Well, it's like that old adage, I'm sure you've heard before, like one is the only est number in marketing, right? So if you're relying on one source for your business, that's not safe. That's not really a strong foundation because if that source goes away or becomes less productive, then you're screwed. Well, and let's go back to the point that we opened up with, originated along by 11 a.m. every day. We just went through a series of funnels that you should have. And now we can add social media to the mix, right? We could add social media, CPAs, financial planners, divorce attorneys, builders, realtors, past clients. That's seven sources of information, seven funnels that you should be building. Right. If you are sitting there going, I don't even know where I would find a loan by 11 a.m. You need to look at how many funnels you have. And if you don't have at least seven, well, so let's do this. So, you know, I think that's great, right? There's lots of different funnels to choose from. And I don't know if you prescribed to this kind of belief, but you know, you can't be, depending on where you're at in your business, right? I mean, the feedback I kind of sense from a lot of loan officers is, well, you know, great. Well, how do I just get started? Or, you know, what's the one funnel, you know, the one source of business that I could pick, like would be, you know, ideal for me. So I don't know if I'm kind of like, I don't want to paint you in a box because the truth is, right, all those funnels have their own value proposition. If you are face to face with this loan officer and you know that the biggest area of weakness for them of the pyramid is the awareness, I need to get more people to know that I exist and I'm not a secret agent, you know, where would you advise them to start if they need to build the more of their awareness and their local market? Well, I, number one, I'm going to start with my immediate sphere of influence in terms of people who know me already within my family, within the people that I know. And I'm going to look for influencers within that group, okay, meaning let's say that I know you and you know me and I know that you're a big influencer and you have a lot of connections in town or a better example is I had a friend in Nashville. He was the president of the Red Cross chapter, always involved in a lot of fundraising and charity events. I went to Joel and I said, Joel, hey, listen, I'm growing my mortgage practice. I'm wondering, who are the top three leaders in real estate that you know are ambitious, go oriented, they're driven, they're great leaders in real estate? And Joel said, hey, I've got three or four names for you that I'm personal friends with. And I said, that is fantastic. Give me those names, I'm going to call those people and when I call those agents, I basically reference Joel, I said, hey, we're both friends with Joel. He spoke really highly of you, said a lot of great things behind your back, said you were a great leader, you were very ambitious, you were goal oriented, you were driven. I would love to sit down and talk with you for a little bit about how you arrived at this success part in your life. I'd love to learn from you, maybe get some mentorship from you over a cup of coffee. Would you spend 10 minutes with me to get to know you and maybe share and impart some wisdom from you to me? I'm not leading with mortgage, I'm not even telling them a mortgage loan officer for crying out loud. They know who, they, if you hear the word mortgage loan officer, most realtors cranche. Yeah. Oh, another one. So I think you got to start with your immediate sphere of influence. Who do you know right now that is influential in your community and can connect you with other influential leaders? And that's where you have to start to get known. Okay. Yeah, that's good. So all right, start with your sphere of influence connected to other influential leaders. Or else would you suggest somebody start because that sounds like that, that's relatively manageable, right? Somebody could complete those activities in a pretty short time clip in a given week or over the course of, say, 30 days if they're focused on it. So what next, where else would you direct people once they've kind of tapped into their sphere of influence? Okay. Second place is I'm going to connect with the networkers in town, right? So I'm going to go to some high profile networking events in my community where there are high profile networkers that can connect me with other networking events. Now when I say high profile, I'm not, I mean you have to judge the events that you're going to based on the attendees that are there. If they're all new in business too, they're really not going to be able to help you accelerate your growth. I've got to go to established networkers in town that have been parts of groups for multiple years. And I've got to look and infuse myself into the fabric of those networking events so that I can get known and they can, they'll in term want to spread the word about me as well as introduce me to other groups. So you're talking about places like B&I or things like that? Possibly. I mean, now when we talk about local networking groups, now I judge them based on the quality of people that show up at the event. Right. Right. So I've been to a number of those. We look around the restaurant, you know, and you've got the six, eight people, whatever and it's like, okay, this doesn't seem to be a really qualified bunch for what you're trying to do. Yeah. I mean, you know, we're trying to say, hey, what's the one thing you can do? And listen, if you're getting started, there isn't just one thing. You've got to do a lot of things. Okay. So before I go back to the people grossly underestimate the amount of time, energy and effort it takes to grow the business, you know, you've got to be making a minimum. If you're getting started and you're trying to figure out where you're going to go, you didn't even be making a minimum of 50 contacts a week to introduce yourself to your business to people. Yeah. And I think, you know, the question comes up with that and, you know, of course, you know what I do and have taught long officers for a while in terms of doing like the seminars for realtors is it comes up, it comes down to, okay, so if I've got to make those 50 contacts a week, right, there's various channels that I can do that through. There is, as you said earlier, social media, there is the networking. There is the, you know, doing the coffee talks with my sphere of influence. There is trying to get in front of real estate agents and, you know, I've got certain beliefs about better ways to do that with regards to agents. So yeah, it seems to be there's a lot of different place that depending on where you're at in your business, if you're, if you're looking to grow your base of quote unquote potential referrals, yeah, you need to, I would say, you know, it's funny, I'm just trying to put my hat on right now. It sounds like I'm, like, stalling, but I'm thinking about this as an actual mortgage professional. You know, this is just how I think and I could be totally off base on this, but, you know, I want to identify what is the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the activity I can do, right? Yeah. Because all of them have a different R, what I call an ROE return on effort, um, cold calling as you know, has its own very low ROE. My personal life, you can feel free to play devil's advocate there, but I know I'm with you on that. Okay. And then those are these other, you know, certain level of ROEs, but, but what would you say? I guess this is where I'm trying to get with you ultimately from your experience, right? And you may have already answered the question. So forgive me, but what do you see as the biggest ROE return on effort to, to address that problem of having that originated loan every day by 11 a.m.? You know, it, it's a combination, but I like the one to many approach and I like building my brand as an educator and advocate of the market. Okay. Right. So, um, let's just, let's just play devil's advocate or maybe not, maybe that's not the right word. Let's just plot me into any city in the United States. Name a city. A city where you don't know anybody? Yeah. Just name a city. All right, man. Come on out here on the West Coast, Irvine, California. Boom. I know you and that's it. And I'm going to pretend I don't even know you. All right. Fair enough. Yes. All right. Now, listen, I learned this a long time ago. The best loan officer doesn't win the business. The best marketer wins the business. You know, that's not going to wrap you, but I remember this real estate train I mentioned this the other day. You used to have this great saying. He's like, you know, do you want to be well-known or worth knowing? And it was kind of a trick question because the reality, when you think about it, it's like, well, I want to be a quality person and be worth knowing. Well, of course you do. Right. But in the context of the question, you want to be well-known because, and then you went on to say, how many of you here, and you know, you're in front of agents every day. So you can, you ask this question. How many of you here know that agent who's not as professional as you, doesn't follow up as good as you, you know, doesn't really care as much as you, but they're out producing you every single month. How many of you know an agent like that? Everybody. Right. With to the point you're making to them because they're well-known, right? Yeah. Absolutely. Now, look, here's exactly what I would do. This is the game plan that I would do, okay? Now, I know this, some people are going to be like, what? But this is the game plan that I would do and you've got to choose what's right for you. But again, I'm going to tell you, people grossly underestimate the amount of time, energy, effort, and money it takes to grow a business. It takes all of these things, right? So you've got to dump, if you're trying to get something off the ground, right? You don't have time for television. Right. You just don't. I've got to give something up. Right. I did when I was getting my career started. I spent the daylight hours networking and getting to know people and shaking hands and kissing babies and all of that kind of stuff. And I spent my nighttime hours reading and studying and building out my systems and updating my database and all of those kind of things, right? My wife thought we were, we were not even married during the middle of the night and she's like, where are you at? I'm like, I'm working on the business. So you've my nighttime to work on my business or work the daytime to work in my business when I'm trying to get it going. If you want to, if you want to get to a sustainable level, if you want to struggle, don't do those things. Okay. So we're back to, you're, you're, you moved from national to Irvine. You don't know a soul. What are you doing? Okay. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get myself a list of the top 15 to 25 real estate agents in Irvine, okay? That are doing a minimum of $12 million a year in transactions, minimum, okay? Because here's the deal. If I can end up with 12 of those people, they're doing about a million dollars a month. If I could capture 25% of that business, I'm getting $3 million a month in originated loans. That's enough of that one funnel, okay? So I just want a small piece of a big pie, okay? So I'm going to, I'm going to get myself 15 to 25 of the top agents in town. And I'm going to, I'm going to go out and I'm going to call them up. I'm not even going to play the role of loan officer because remember, they hear from loan officers all the time, right? So if I introduce myself as a loan officer, I'm dead in the water just right off the bat. Okay? So I'm going to call them up and let's just say that you're one of the top 25, okay? And I'm going to call you up and I'm going to say, hey, Jeff, this is Tim Davis. And we are launching a brand new book. It's going to be published on Amazon of the top 20 most respected leaders in real estate. And there's absolutely no cost to be in this book. You were selected to be part of an interview. I was wondering if I could get with you in the next five days and interview you for your chapter in this upcoming book, you're going to get a copy of the book and it'll be a great exposure for you in your business. And I was wondering if you'd have time over the next five days to sit down and talk about the project that we're working on and maybe interview you to have your chapter in that book. Wow. That's an approach they've probably never heard before. Never heard, right? Never heard that approach. That's totally unique. Yeah. Totally unique. And it's plain to what they want, that agent wants more exposure. They want to be seen as a leader. They want more credibility, more authority, more influence. And I never once said I was a mortgage loan officer, did I? No. We don't have to go through all the details of the talk track, but obviously there are specifics to that. But no, I think the concept is great. It's right on spot. If they ask you who you are, whatever, then you can provide the kind of context you want there. But yeah, that's very cool, man. I mean, I'm trying to put my agent hat on and naturally I would ask some questions, but I would definitely be agents, right? They have an ego. I'd be flattered. I'd want to learn more about it. I wouldn't give the usual knee jerk response that they give when they're getting those types of generic coal calls. So I would think you'd have a pretty good success ratio on converting those calls to appointments. Yeah. I mean, look, if I get 25, if I make 25 calls, right? Number one, they're not even co-calls anymore because I've got something that the vast majority of them are going to want. Yeah. And if they say no, I'm going to move on to the next one. Who cares if I get rejected? Right. That's great. All right. Do you want to carry that all the way out in terms of like continuing with your shock and awe campaign in Irvine, California? Well, listen, I'm the type of personality that I've learned over the years that you either need to go big or if you don't go big, you're going to be somewhere in the middle of the pack or at the bottom of the pack. And that's just me and that's just what I've learned. And so I've got to find a way to be totally different than anybody else, but I've been doing this branding stuff for years. I did it in my mortgage business, I produced CDs, I wrote and published books, I did all of those kind of things to lead up to speaking events locally, right? And here's another thing that I would do. I would have to have a multi-approach campaign, right? You can't just be like, okay, well, I'm just going to do one thing and hope it works. No, I'm going to have a multi-approach campaign. So I've got to make sure I've got enough money in the bank to support me through this process. But the other things I won't go deep into the book, but that's one of the things I would literally write and publish a book of the top 2015-12. How many interviews I could get if I were going to get 12? Can you make it localized? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I'm definitely going to do that. There's no question in my mind about it for several reasons. Now I'm meeting the best real estate agents, the ones that are actually producing business. Right, right. Yeah, and what's interesting is, I mean, you could expand that so many different ways. You could actually then start to think about now in terms of building a brand which will come to in this conversation, but in terms of the different, you know, if you think about the hub and the spoke model with all the spokes of the wheel and the hub. So now you've got, you know, these incredible insights from these top 15-20 agents you've interviewed. You've got all these nuggets of information setting aside the relationship building aspect of that for a moment and recognizing how you can now leverage the content. Think about how you could repurpose that content on social media, blog posts, you know, giving local lunch and learns to your real estate agents and just sharing these best practices that you've learned in interviewing, right, the top 20 agents in, you know, the local community. Yeah, 100%. 100%. Now here's what I'm going to do second to that, okay? Yeah. Now, again, listen, baseline foundation on this thing is I'm going to go big or I'm not going to do it, okay? Second thing I'm going to do, I'm going to really have, I'm going to take one day I'm all right and publish my own book and one day that has nothing to do with the interviews I'm going to do. The interviews I'm going to do is for a different book so that I can get in there and meet the real estate agents, start to build a rapport with them and give them something of that they're looking for, right? And in return, I'm going to get to know them. I'm going to be able to start to build a relationship and they're going to see me differently than everybody else. Now, see me as a giver, they're going to be see me as an influencer, see me as somebody that is trying to help them and not ask for anything in return, okay? Okay. I'm going to start the relationship but I'm going to take one day, I'm going to knock out one book, something like, you know, well, I've got the book already, right? But 125 of the most inspirational quotes for your real estate business, right? Okay. And so I've got that book and then I'm going to get a dialer, I'm going to go find me a virtual assistant, okay? And I'm going to make that virtual assistant, I'm going to first have them get a list of all the brokerages in town, okay? And then I'm going to put them on a dialing campaign to where they've got to have me speaking once or twice per week in every office they can get me into as well as the local women's association chapters or any other chapters that have to do with real estate in Irvine, California. Okay. I'm taking notes actually. And so now I've got this dialer behind the scenes and I'm paying, say, $10 an hour for that's going to over the next 30 days try to get me booked to speak a minimum of six times. And so you're going to speak on what, when they ask you, great, come on in, you've got this book, you know, 125 quotes, what's your topic, Tim? My topic is how to get inspired to grow your business, five tips to grow your business in 2016 and beyond. Okay. You know, a general motivation inspirational type of speech. Okay. Got it. Okay. And now I'm going to come in there and I'm the author, I'm the publisher of this book. Okay. I'm going to give you, you know, a little five, five tips on how to grow your business. And I'm going to get that 20, 30 minutes in front of that audience of 15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 60 people. Every one of them are going to go in my database. Right. Then I'm going to have my dialer, the ones, the appointments I don't set at that event, which by the way, let me tell you what's going to happen because it's happened to me all the time. And you got to understand, I'm a kid from the projects that flunked out of college. Okay. So I've got like no pedigree for being able to do this stuff. I just do it. Right. Okay. And so this is what happens. You go and speak and you've got your book and people take pictures of you with the book and they ask you to sign it and autograph it and all this other kind of stuff. Right. It's all of a sudden you're no longer seeing as a loan officer, you're seeing as an influencer and you can have real meaningful conversations and get to a referral relationship faster. Yeah. You know, it's funny, you know, you're no longer seeing as a loan officer. That's actually completely secondary to everything you're talking about here and it's often kind of an afterthought when you're there and you're going through this process and I know this because I've talked to a number of fellows who do some similar stuff. And you know, at some point people, you know, ask, well, so well, you know, what do you do? Tell me about it. Oh, and I'm also, you know, a mortgage loan officer. Oh, sure. We didn't even think. It's kind of like that Trojan horse thing. Sure. Absolutely. I'm going to bring that in secondary because here's the deal. Most people in America are industry racists and let me define that term before people freak out. Here's what I mean by an industry racist. They hear somebody that works in an industry and they and they predetermine the quality that individual based on the industry. They say they represent, give you a perfect example. Hi, Jeff. My name's Tim Davis. I'm a used car salesman. Yeah. Now what are you thinking? Um, I'm out of here. Right. Okay. Um, good friend of mine, uh, started up a church plant in, uh, Mount Juliet, the little east of Nashville. Maybe meaning to go out to his church. Finally went out there a couple of weekends ago, visiting his dad's now working full time as a pastor on staff. I said, gosh, Ron, that is fantastic. I know you're really excited to be full time. I said, tell me a little bit about your days and what you do. He goes, well, I'll tell you what I don't do is I don't tell people I'm a pastor. Why not? That's what I said. Well, why not? He goes because a lot of people get freaked out when you say that and they don't get honest about it. And I can't build a true relationship. They start to lock up. Yeah. Ah, and I said, if you've been to my branding seminars because we talk about that all the time, don't say that you're a realtor. Oh my gosh. Like, realtor's according to Gallup have like a 28% approval rating. Right. Right. Mortgage loan officers. You're not too far behind that. Yeah. Right. Okay. You know, but if I can introduce myself as a publisher, as an author, as a creator, or founder of it, okay? So, but I'm not done with my marketing that I'm going to do, okay? Okay. Okay. So we got to go back. We're back at a shopping mall campaign. Back on. I got my stock and all campaign. Number one, I've got my target 25 that I'm going to go out for interviews and I'm going to put together this book and like a who's who magazine, but it's going to be a published book. Okay. Number two, I've got my own quote book and I'm got my dialer setting up a, um, lunch and learn type of events with me so I can go in and I can do one to many approaches. Right. Number three, I'm going to launch my agent marketing academy on the third Thursday of every month. And I wrote about this on my LinkedIn blog post, right? And so I'm going to launch agent marketing academy, which is going to be a, a lunch and learn that I host on the third Thursday. I'm going to connect with other influencers in the market to help me fill the room up. I'm going to connect with a cut, cut, cut knife representative because they know all the realtors and they know the realtors that spend money. I'm going to connect with a home warranty rep that sells the most home warranty reps in town because you know what? They know the realtors that are selling homes because they're the ones buying the H home warranties from them, right? Okay. Now, I'm not necessarily going to, going to connect with the title person. I'm, I might, but for me, the home warranty and the cut cut reps, they know who's spending money in real estate and that's who I want invited to agent marketing academy. Hmm. Interesting. I, naturally, for me, I always go for title, but that's an interesting angle. You can, there's nothing wrong with the title. I've just, I may get a title person, I may get, you know, I'm going to have no more than three sponsors, but I'm going to create leverage because I've only got so much time today, right? I get 24 hours. Do you get any more than that? No. Okay. So I just want to make sure, because if you had a secret, I, you need to, just wait for you to swap the interview. I'll be bottling that and selling it. So I'm going to connect with these influencers in town to create leverage and I'll say I'm going to make you part of agent marketing academy. We're going to have, I have this on the third Thursday of every month, a set time, a set location. Now, get this. I go out and I get my first lunch and learn, my, my dialer sets up. I've got my book, you know, maybe I'm selling the book and donating some money to local charity that everybody loves, have a tattoo for humanity or whatever the case might be. So now I'm charitable as well. And so they sign, I signed some books, they take pictures, they put their picture on social media. So I'm now I'm getting all their influence on social media because they got me and them in a picture of the book together and I gave them a really good speech at the WCR wherever I went to. And then I'm going to say, Hey, on the third Thursday of every month, from 11 to one, we host a great class called agent marketing academy. We cover a killer topic where there'd be social media, video marketing, whatever it is, we're going to help you grow your business. We're going to feed you. You're going to have a chance to get a wonderful watch. We're going to do some networking. Now I want you to bring your very best listing and I'm going to give you 60 seconds to stand up and share that listing with everybody else in the room. Hmm. Good idea. Get you to help you sell some homes. Right. Good idea. Right. And so when I'm talking to the group, now again, it's not about me saying, Hey, I'm a lone officer with awesome rage. You should come get some of my great rates because I'll call you, I'll call you back and I'll close on time. Right. All right. I'm up there saying, Hey, I'm the author of this book and I'm the founder of agent marketing academy and I want to invite everybody in the room for free to become, have lunch with us. Okay. I'm with you. I'm waiting to insert a question or a statement at the right time. Yeah. You go right ahead. So I mean, those are the things I've got going on. You see what I'm saying? It's like a massive blitz of like, who in the heck is this dude? Right. Well, yeah. Well, yeah. So when you think about it, I mean, that's brilliant number one and really it goes in line with if anybody who's been who's in touch with, you know, the change in the sales model, the traditional sales model and you and I both know and I hope listeners know is that traditional sales model is dead, right? The one that's all about interruption marketing and coal calling and, you know, we've moved to this, this place of what we call content marketing or where everyone's a publisher. Everyone's a media company. And what you just laid out there in this, you know, very brief shock and awe campaign is how you can quickly become a publisher starting from ground zero. And it's all what you're talking about there is positioning, right? You are completely turning the traditional positioning of a loan officer upside down where as you're not even recognized actually coming through the door as a loan officer, you're a scene as a publisher, a media company, somebody who's adding value, somebody who's creating things, somebody who's making an impact and really, you know, as you say in some of your talks, right, putting other people first, right? What's the impact that you're going to have? It's not about you, right? It's about what's the difference you can make. And so I have bought into that and I would be curious to get your feedback on as you see and interact with mortgage professionals out there. Are they buying into that as well? The ones who want to dominate, yes, the ones who want to give in to their fears, doubts, insecurities, all that kind of stuff, yeah, what'd you say? I said, fun, yeah, all the fears and certainty, that's, but if you want to give in to the fun, I love that. Then no, they're not. You know, they get excited about it when I present the thing, but then all of a sudden they're like, well, I'm not a good speaker. Well, of course you're not because you keep saying that you're not. Right. And you say, yeah, I mean, it's like anything else. You have never really exercised that muscle. So you got to get to the gym, you know, and getting to the gym and speaking is actually doing it. Yeah, it's not going to be easy at first. You and I both know that from personal experience. My first event had three people. One of them was my assistant. I mean, it was a room full of empty chairs, Jeff. One realtor showed up and she sat in the front row when I stood up in front of her and I talked. Yeah, you got to practice. That's what I saw it as. I saw it as practice. I didn't leave that. I was disappointed. I was upset. I was kicking myself in the tail, but I didn't leave going that strategy doesn't work because the strategy you've been proven by other people to work. I left it and said, I'm not good at this strategy, but dog on it, I will get good at this strategy. Well, you know, you tapped into something there. I've learned recently, if you know anything about me, you know, I'm, you know, into fitness and always trying to, you know, fight that battle. And I know you are. I see your workouts and stuff that you're doing. That's awesome. But, you know, there's this program that's called Live to Fail and the whole concept of it is to embrace failure because nothing, you know, worth having happens without failure. And so you got to experience a little failure. You just got to know that failure is a part of the process and to embrace that and to just be like, when you fail and you've got three people that show up at your first presentation and one of them is your assistant, the other ones you, to embrace that and know that that's just part of the journey, man. And you're going to, you know, as long as you keep going, right, one foot in front of the other, keep getting better, keep refining, you know, review, process, refine, you know, and all that kind of stuff along the way, you're going to get to that end destination. You're going to get there, you know, so I'm going to come in there with a big media publishing campaign that, because I've got to get in front of the best people, right, I've got to position myself immediately right off the bat as an authority in the city, right? I can't just schlep around hoping something good is going to happen. Well, because how else are you going to, you know, get attention in this noisy world? Is it going to be the everything, everything every other loan officer is doing, right? The coal calls, the ray cheats, whatever, you know, doorknoc and all that kind of stuff. And I'm always, I always like to put the qualifier out there, you know, am I saying that, you know, coal calling never works or showing up at broker previews, never works, no. But I think what you and I are, you know, really tap it into here is like I really wanted to focus on is leverage the activities, ROE return on effort. And what you're talking about is, you know, the highest return on effort now. It may be a lot of effort at the outset. It may be more effort than you sitting behind your computer and picking up the phone and getting a bunch of voicemails. That doesn't take a whole heck of a lot of effort, right? But that's why the return on it sucks too. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, look, being great is hard. Being excellent is hard. Being mediocre, it's hard too. Because when you're mediocre, you're broke and that has some hard to it as well. So if being being mediocre, being great and being excellent, if they're all hard, here's the deal. Choose your hard. Yeah, wow, that's good. Choose your hard. If mediocre is your hard, that's the one you're going to choose. Because all this other has too much time in it and all this other kind of stuff, then fine, understand that being mediocre has its own set of hard because other people are going to be going to events and doing vacations and stuff and you're not going to have the money to do that because you're struggling. And so mediocre, the hard with that is the struggle. Yeah. So you're going to have hard in any area. Just choose the one you want. Wow. That's cool, man. That's really sitting in with me. All right. So we're almost out of time here. We've talked a lot of, you know, a lot in terms of strategy. We talked about dropping you in the middle of a city where you know nobody, shock and awe campaign. You have since been dropped into this city reached out to the top 15 or 20 real estate leaders you've had, you know, lunch talks with them, coffee talks about, you know, what makes them successful business stories and all things you can learn and leverage. We've self-published one or two of these books where, you know, a lot of, a lot of times the loan offers are asking, oh, how the heck am I going to do this, right? How do I get all this content and info? Well, I think you've just pretty much mapped out a strategy for how to do that. I mean, book of quotes, right? How hard is that to come up with? You're really? I mean, hire somebody from Fiverr or whatever to put it together, personal, you know, temporary assistant, virtual assistant, whatever. You can self-publish on createspace.com, which is a division of Amazon and do it very inexpensively. Heck, hire somebody to create a PDF and, you know, you know, don't let any of that, those BS excuses get in your way because I think if what you, this is resonating for anybody listening, right? We're talking about ultimately here we are, Tim, we're going to reach the pinnacle of everything that you do and we're going to talk about personal branding mastery and building a brand. So why is it so important today in this noisy world to build a brand? Well, listen, if you don't position yourself as an educator and an advocate for the success of the people that you're serving, then somebody else is going to, right? And so if for no other reason that somebody else is going to beat you to the punch and you're competitive enough to not allow that to happen, how about that? That's a good enough reason in my book. But it is a noisy world and how are you going to get noticed? You're just not going to get noticed. The other reason to really build your personal brand is because God only made one of you, right? So you can, you can have a book of 125 must read quotes and I can have a book of 125 must read quotes, right? But I love to listen to philosophers of life, philosophers in part, great wisdom. And one of the greatest philosophers of all time, Ricky Bobby said, if you're not first you're last, right? Amen to that. So a guy that getting a race car with a cougar, it's my like that, I would love to have him be my personal coach, Ricky Bobby, no doubt, right? And so if you get there first and then I'm coming up behind you, wow, gosh, you know, that's why building a brand is so important to me, right? Because people don't do business with companies, they do business with people, right? And they do business with people that they see that they, they know, like and trust, we've all heard that, but they also do people that with business that they know, like and trust that deliver the results. And by the way, people that they know even exist in the local market, right? Yeah. Right. So hit the ground hard because I mean, listen, you've got competition and it doesn't matter if you decide, hey, I don't even want to do more results anymore. I think I'm going to go be an eye doctor. Guess what? There's more eye doctors in the city. You've got to deal with this personal branding there too. So what I'm saying is, is that for me, it's always come down to the personal brand because it's not who you know, it's who knows you. Well, yeah. And the other thing too is, you know, a personal brand puts a stake in the ground, right? It's a point of differentiation, you know, we've now referred to this rising above the noise thing, but that's what it is. Because otherwise, right? I mean, how are you going to be visible? How are you going to amplify your unique message, right? It's different than your competitors out there who aren't largely even thinking about doing this unless they're getting, you know, hold of this podcast, perhaps. And then of course, right, having the ability to connect with people. So that's what the personal brand can do uniquely and differently. And by the way, Tim, I think you would agree with this. Your personal quote, you know, in quotes, I'm doing air quotes, man. Your personal brand is not your company's brand. Agree? Oh, I agree. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So you need to establish your own and, you know, follow some of the principles we're talking about here. I'm a believer in this good stuff. And real quick, I don't know if you've, I don't, I don't hate to put it on a spot, but I mean, any, you know, quick story from the trenches, real estate or mortgage success story about someone you've seen kind of implement this over time could be yourself, even. I mean, you know, I know. No, listen, man, I'm going to give you two quick, quick stories, okay? So, and I know one of them would not mind me sharing it all. Most people know Shashank, Shekar, I mean, you probably know Shashank. Sure. Wonderful, wonderful human being, great gentleman, met him seven, eight years ago, came to me. We did some consulting work. He was, he was in really the low income level, right, of origination. I mean, it was like, he lives in San Francisco. I'm like, how in the world are you even survival man? And he was at, he was really kind of on the ropes, like, would he stay in the business or would he not stay in the business? And so I challenged him to build his personal brand. And so the first year, he took a whole year to write a book, I'm like, oh my gosh, if we take another year to write a book, I think I'm going to have to kill myself. I want to get a book done this weekend, not in it. And, but he got the book published and finally, and he'll tell you today, man, I wish I'd have listened to Tim and done it sooner because the following year, as a result of having that book and the connections he made and how people started to see him, number one, his confidence group, right? And that's foundational. If you don't have confidence in yourself, it doesn't matter what the strategy is. Number two, other people saw him differently. So his second year, his income skyrocketed into the high six figures and he hasn't looked back since. I mean, if you watch the guy today, he's taking those branding concepts and continuing to pile up on him and pile up on him and pile up on him. He's since gone and written several more books. He runs a blog. He's been on radio TV. I mean, when you see the guy, you're like, man, the student's legit, right? So that's an example of, he just took ownership of it. Of prior, he was letting the market kick him around and he was letting, he was, he was a victim of the market versus being a hero of his own story. He was choosing his heart. He was choosing his heart. Yeah. And I said, let's stop playing the victim of the market and let's be a hero of our life. And so he chose the hero of the life route. And now you look at him in multiple, he, one of the best originators probably in the country, good friend of mine. I love him dearly. And, but he took massive action, right? And he, he, he, he saw the doubt. He had the fear, but we pressed through it together and we got him to the finish line. And as a result, it's, it's been wonderful for him. Another gentleman in another market, we did a book project four years ago. And I remember this day like it was yesterday. He calls me up on the phone. He's like, hey, listen, this, this, this, I got this thing going on. I don't even know what to do. And I'm like, oh, calm down, man. What's going on? He's like, this title company called me, you know, I did, I did a lunch and learn like you said. And I, and I had about 60 agents in there and, and they all got a copy of my book. And then on this title company, they've called me up and they want me to speak to 600 real estate agents. And they want to know what my speaking fee is. Haha, wow. Oh, my gosh. And, and he goes, what do I tell him? And I'm like, call him back and tell him it's normally $5,000, but it's half off because it's local. Right. And, and he got $2,500 to be a loan officer speaking to, to, to 600 real estate agents. He's not much business. He got out of that. He got paid to do the speaking game. Oh, my gosh. All, all because he decided to position himself as brand to become a publisher, if you will, of valuable knowledge. Yes. Absolutely. And, and listen, both of those examples did it scared his hell. Sure. They were both afraid and we had plenty of conversations about the doubts, fears, insecurities and all that other stuff because it's common to everyone of us. Look, I feel like an idiot every time I put on that paintball jacket, I swear to you. But you press through. Right. You find a way to press through to be different because if you're, if your heart is to serve people, then you got to show up in a way that they say, Oh, you're different and I need your help. Yeah. It's funny what happens when the shift in your, like your confidence, you know, becomes from that place of serving instead of like, you know, oh, my gosh, I really got to generate a loan. I really got to make some money, you know what I mean? And, and I got it, right? We've all been there and, you know, I've had those fun. But it's like somehow you got to get to that point to make that shift where, where it is about the bigger cause and then that you show up differently. Yeah. And, and that's something that lasts. I mean, the other stuff is seasonal, right? Right. But, but let me ask you this question. Have you ever walked by a trash can and seen a book in it? No. Have you ever walked by a trash can and seen flyers from loan officers in it? Yeah. All the time. There you go. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Well, a good way to close it out, you know, usually I like to ask one last question because you are such a busy guy doing a lot of things and we're talking about, like, you know, you've said through this whole thing, like, you know, succeeding on a big level is going to be hard, right? Particularly at the early, early stages, you know, like to use that metaphor of an airplane, right? Where it uses what the bulk, you know, 30, 40% of its fuel, just getting off the runway, not even getting to its destination. So if you're still on the runway, right, it's going to be hard. But what's one advice, one leave behind? What does Tim, Tim do? Tim Davis, one tool, habit, or daily ritual that has the biggest impact on your productivity? Man, I have a peak performance planner. I give out to all of our loan officers that are in our coaching program at Moorgahage tonight. It's just mandatory that you do it and it starts with your daily ritual first thing in the morning and it takes you throughout the entire day. And if you're not sitting there, you know how Dave Ramsey talks about giving every dollar in your budget a name, you need to be giving every hour in your day a name. And if you're not doing that, if you're not planning your day, then the day's planning you. And the peak performance planner that I personally have always used, that I give out to the loan officers at movement, the ones that adapt it and use it religiously, now listen, you got to have self-discipline and we all have it, but you got to use yours. Okay, you can't get away with excuse like, well, I'm just not disciplined. No, you are, you just choose not to be. So you have to get disciplined to complete that thing every day and make sure you've got a roadmap of what your day is going to be. Otherwise, everybody else that wants to tap into their self-serving nature and get on your agenda, we'll do it. Right. Wow. Okay. Very cool. So you've got to have your daily ritual. You've got to say that one more time about every hour in a day. Yeah, you got to give every hour in a day a name. Have every hour a day in a name or else that day, yeah, if you don't, if you don't tell the day what to do, the day will tell you what to do. Yeah, no, I just think that's great, man, the way because it's like otherwise you're just, you're just fleeting, floating away and you're just, you know, like that feather who's blowing through the wind, right? Throughout the next thing, you know, it's time to go home, whatever, and what did you really get done unless you've really got the specific time blocking and identified, like, given every hour, block hours, a specific task, then your product is going to suffer. Yeah. I know we're over time, but let me say this, people tell me all the time, like, Tim, I need to work on my time management and I'm like, no, you need to work on your discipline. Hmm. Right? You mean, you don't manage time, I mean, the clock has, you know, the hours are already on the clock. It's already, it was pre-built before you ever came into the world. The clock is what the clock is. You have a discipline problem. You're not, you're not willing to be disciplined for an hour each day to go through working on your business. You're not disciplined in the morning to have good rituals. You don't have a time management problem. You have a discipline problem. Hmm. Yeah, and I forget how it's said exactly, but sometimes saying no is the best thing you can do. Right? No to those distractions that are going to pull you off track. Right. You've got to make a loan by 11 a.m. I don't have time to talk to you about your game last night. Jeff, we'll talk after I get my loan. Yeah, there you go. Good point. Okay, cool, man. Hey, listen, awesome stuff. If people want to find you on the internet, how do they find you? What's the website to go to? Man, I tell you what, how about they just go check out the podcast? We've got the Personal Brandy Mastery podcast up, and if they go to Personal Brandy Mastery podcast.com, it will take them right over to the iTunes. They can subscribe for free when we put out a new episode every week. Yeah. Good stuff there. Continue learning from Tim because you are a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. I get inspired every time I listen to you. I want to go write a book now and go meet up much top producers and learn what they know. There you go, man. There you go. First off, a knowledge work on your business, work on your business at night, work in your business during the day until you have enough business that you can take off. There you go. Well, listen, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio, your host wants to get Jeff Zimfer, and we'll see you on the next one, everybody. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in Mortgage Marketing, get more free training and resources at Mortgage MarketingInstitute.com. Hey guys, what's up real quick? We've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before and I just want to quickly remind you of that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. 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