Ep #5: Michael J Maher

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 another edition of Mortgage Marketing Radio. This is your host, Jeff Zimfer. And I can't tell you how excited I am for my special guest here today. It's been a number of years since we've spoken. I know you know who he is. He's out there in the space every single day making a difference for mortgage professionals across the country. Before I bring him on, a quick intro, Michael Mayer, father, realtor, author, speaker, coach, and mentor, referred to as America's most referred realtor. You may know of Michael from his best selling book, The Seven Levels of Communication. How to go from relationships to referrals. If you haven't gotten this book yet, I don't know what rock you've been living under, but go out and get a copy of this book today. It's got a 91% of the reviews on Amazon are five star rankings. You don't see a lot of books that get a five star ranking. That consistently over 400 different reviews on Amazon. So obviously, the market has spoken. People love what Michael's talking about. We're going to dive into it. So a couple of quick quotes here from people you may know in the industry. Todd Duncan. What does Todd say about Michael's book, Seven Levels is the most reliable and sensible business building system I have seen. Dave Ramsey, Financial Guru. If you want to win in business, this book will show you how. So without further ado, Michael Mayer, welcome to the show. Wow. I want a great intro and thank you, Jeff. Always good to speak with you and thank you for the opportunity and the privilege to be on today. Fantastic. No, we're love that. We love to have you. I know you're extremely busy. And we want to really jump right into it. And you know, as obviously we're speaking to mortgage professionals and I'm sure some of the folks listening have heard of you probably have your book and then there's a percentage who have not. So I want to dive into this, you know, this overall concept of, you know, what you call the generosity generation or Gen Gen for short. So first question is why, you know, there's a lot of mortgage pros right trying to get notice and get attention today. Why is the generosity generation or, you know, unpack that a little bit. What is that about and why is it relevant today? Yeah. So the generosity generation was actually a reaction to the consumer. The consumer in the early 2000s got really tired of the where number one focus and the superstar and the rock star advertising and it was, you know, all about me.com. And that's especially in real estate. It was all about me.com everything was, you know, it was about you go to their website. It was their name.com and then it was them in the front with their arms out wide, you know, like look at me, you know, and, you know, what happened is that the consumer got tired of the greed. They got tired of the Brigadotio and in about 2005 they started to change to the point where they, they, they were not reacting to the number one. They were not reacting to that. They, in fact, it was repelling them and they were starting to become more attracted to humility, authenticity, vulnerability and truth because they weren't being told the truth. They thought inron was the truth. They thought the mortgage professionals and the, and the mortgage industry and the banking industry was telling them the truth and doing a good thing for them. And you know, the big short movie is, is definitely revealed a lot of the behind the scene scars and ripped the band off a little bit again. But it's one of those where what I found is that the more humble and the more vulnerable and the more authentic and real I was in the marketplace, the more generous I was, the more referrals I got and the bigger my business got and it was easier and more cost effective. Okay. So the generosity generation is the yin and yang reflection from the ego era. You know, the 90s and early 2000s was what I call the ego era and it was all about me.com and then it, it flipped to the generosity generation because the consumer wasn't looking for you. They were looking for the solutions that you provide. So you know, townhomes and over the park, Kansas was searched 100,000 times more times than Michael J. Mayor. So the generosity generation is just come about from that and the generosity generation is stuck, you know, and people are calling themselves members of the generosity generation and you know, we've got, you know, over 100,000 strong who are considering themselves members of the generosity generation and they are ambassadors in the generosity generation. Okay. So how would I, as a consumer or if I'm a mortgage professional listening to this, how do I recognize someone who is a member of the generosity generation? What are some of the things they do to stand out? Wow. Great question. So the first thing is they come into the relationship not worrying about themselves. You're going to find that they're full of self-efficacy, that they're self-actualized. They're so comfortable with themselves because they know that the 100% of the focus of the conversation is going to be on you. You might not even recognize that they are a member of the generosity generation until afterwards when you go, wow, that person was really interested in me and I spoke 90% of the time and they only spoke 10% of the time. In fact, I'm not even sure what they do. That's what's so great about this is this isn't something that you do to people, right? This isn't about scripts and dialogues that you memorize and try to trick people into moving towards you. People naturally move towards you because of your interest and the more interested you are in the other person, the more interesting you become and the more interested that person becomes in you. It's based on questions versus answers and that's the power of the generosity generation. They're going to notice also that they aren't bragging and all over talking about their successes, though I will tell you that early on, if they've just started to implement the generosity generation and their business is rapidly growing, like we've had a lot of coaching clients have happened, then there is early on, they want to tell their friends, they want to post on Facebook about how good they are doing, but eventually that wears off and they know they're doing great, so they don't have to portray it out there. The other thing is this is the person that is kind of, yeah, that Jeff or that Michael or that mortgage professional is so nice, is so kind, aren't they great? If they're awesome, more people will be starting to say how awesome they are instead of somebody, a mortgage professional telling people how awesome they are, other people are saying how awesome they are and that makes all the difference in the world. That's the root of the generosity generation. That makes a lot of sense and I think anybody listening to this would agree and I think that rings true to your point about the fallout with the banking industry, the financial meltdown years ago, et cetera, I really kind of revealed this renewed interest of desire for more as the word you used as authenticity in the market. I think we're all seeing that. You're obviously engaging with realtors and mortgage loan officers across the country on a daily basis. What are some of the systems tools or how would somebody start to reposition their business from the generosity mindset? What are some specific action steps they would take to show up differently? Yeah, great question. Instead of going in with a brochure and a packet and telling someone how great your quality service is and you can close in four days and you have all these wonderful loan products, put all of that on the back burner and don't worry about it. Focus instead on how you can add value, instead of answering, instead of going in thinking that you have a lot of questions and the way to just simply go in and ask the realtors or ask the financial planners or CPAs that you want to do business with, just get genuinely curious about their business, about their lives, about their lifestyles and look for opportunities to provide proactive generosity in our program. We teach, we have three principles and we have a formula. The formula for success is generosity plus appreciation equals prosperity. So focusing on generosity and appreciation leads to a more prosperous life and lifestyle. So under that we have three principles. The three principles are give first, give thanks and give back and please notice how those align with the success formula. Give first is proactive generosity. Give thanks is appreciation and give back is prosperity. So the give first is asking enough questions to find out a way that you can surprise the other person by providing value in the world. There is two forms of generosity. There is reactive generosity and there is proactive generosity. Active generosity is fantastic. Somebody has an illness or a loss or a devastating tornado or hurricane or tsunami or earthquake hits. We are phenomenal as a human race in trying to build them back up to somewhat of a normal. That's reactive generosity. We are trying to bring them the universe of human one up to somewhere close to normal. Are we going to be able to do it? In a lot of cases no, but we want to help bring them up a little bit because they have been knocked down. Well, that's reactive generosity, that's phenomenal. What we focus on is proactive generosity. Active generosity is give first and being in a way that you have two equals meeting for lunch or on a phone call and you give them something that will help them make their life better, help them achieve a goal, help them conquer a challenge, help them enjoy their life more or enjoy an interest that they love more. If they love fantasy football, then you send them information on how to be better at fantasy football or you connect them to people you know who run fantasy football leagues. You listen in such a way and then act on what you've heard in a generous way. What happens in that case is with proactive generosity is you've actually taking this universe of human nature and karma and yin and yang if you will. When you've helped them, you've added value to them, they go above normal that you've given them something they weren't expected so they're at a higher level. What happens is in the universe, once a homeostasis, it wants balance. What happens is something comes back to you, generosity leads to reciprocity. What this is, is this constant daily practice of proactive generosity puts the world at your favorite, puts the karma in your favorite. You've got all these people who are looking to reciprocate to you because you've provided so much value to them over time or in some cases over a few minutes and when that reciprocity comes, we teach that, listen, you need to teach and train those who want to give back to you, who want to reciprocate the generosity that the number one way, the finest way to reciprocate is with referrals because it's the truth. It's the truth that people can give back to you in many, many ways. We need to continue to educate them that the number one way is through referrals and the beauty here is that when they reciprocate with referrals, your bottom line goes up, your profit goes up and we all know that the most profitable businesses are referral-based businesses. Well, profitability is your business having money but there's something even better is that the more profitable your business is and the less you have to work hard to do that and the less you have to swallow your dignity to do that, then you start to experience prosperity. So generosity leads to reciprocity, reciprocity leads to referrals, referrals lead to profitability in your business and profitability leads to prosperity. Well, here's what's cool. Prosperity leads to more generosity, a higher and more powerful generosity and the cycle continues because higher and more powerful generosity leads to higher and more powerful reciprocity, higher and more powerful reciprocity leads to higher and more powerful referrals, higher and more powerful profitability and higher and more powerful prosperity, which of course leads to more generosity. Okay, thank you for that. Let's do this. Let's bring it down to the street level because conceptually, I think, it obviously it makes sense, right? We're talking about reciprocation. We give before we expect something to return. So I for some time have taught and I know this is actually talked about in your book, ways to actually boots on the ground level that mortgage law officers can actually start to build that reciprocity or that generation exchange, that value exchange with real estate agents. One way that I've taught for years how to do that is by giving lunch and learns and hosting presentations that add value. So what other ideas are you coaching law officers on? What they could be doing to really demonstrate that in their local market? Yeah. First of all, quit pandering, right? Quit chasing.com, truly, quit pandering, quit seeing yourself as a servant of the referral of the realtor, right? Is look at yourself as a partner. Jeff, I know that's something that you mastered, right? You didn't see yourself as unequal or lower. You saw yourself as an equal, as a partner, as someone who can add as much value to them as you can. So that's the first thing is quit pandering, putting yourself in that position. I mean, here's the other thing is quit cold calling. A cold calling is a form of pandering and pandering is coming from a weak spot. You have to cold call. That's what a realtor thinks. You have to cold call. You must not be a top producer. You must be new. You're cold calling. So quit pandering, that's the first thing. The second thing is when you get these meetings, when you get the opportunity, is, I just saw this. You know, I just literally saw this where this guy wanted to get everything in about his business and about how he was different, and that's the problem with how his training is being taught these days, is it's about your USP or your UVP, right? Unique value proposition or unique selling proposition or proposal, if you will. And the fact of matter is, is the ultimate USP, the ultimate UVP, is generosity. It's generosity. It's first seeking to ask questions instead of answering questions, is you're the one who asks and actually expresses interest in the other before you're, who cares if you can close in seven days or 11 days. And by the way, for those of you posting on Facebook that you closed in 11 days, quit it. No. Yeah. Let me pause you there, because I know some so long officers would probably argue that. I mean, I just talked to somebody the other day where they literally, you know, they're can close in like eight, ten days. And why is that not perhaps a competitive advantage or does that not, you know, gel with, you know, giving value, if you will, who can't close in ten days? Well, I mean, so, so to kind of play that out, you know, the role here, I mean, there are definitely some brokers out there who cannot. So the feeling is is, hey, mom's superior because, hey, I can close in ten days and you can't. So I got a better value prop. You're saying that's maybe, so when it closes in 12 days, so when you, oh, then you come back, right? And you close in 12 days, you failed, right? Right. Right. What do you mean you can't close in eight days? You close that guy in eight days, you know, why can't you close me in seven? My credit score is higher in his. I think the big point here is that that, while that may be kind of a nice feature, that's not the true basis of a real relationship and a value exchange. Exactly. I will tell you, I mean, I just literally, I watched this, I, somebody paid me a lot of money to come in and run, run an event and essentially run a mastermind. And it was, it was just so funny to watch like all they wanted to do is, is, is grill these hundred million dollar producers, the average on my panel was a hundred million producers, my coaching class, right? And they, they, so it's just like they just grow. So, you know, who do you use for your mortgage for it? What are you looking for in a mortgage professional? What, what, you know, everything was leading down the path of, oh, come on, right? Here we go. We do these questions and then they're going to tell me how they're different, which is exactly the path it went. Okay, funny enough. Then at the very end, I mean, we wrapped up the mastermind. We were all getting ready to go. I was talking to the, to the, the, the super producers on the panel and we were, I was talking to one of them about a situation that they had. They had a situation where this, this one client had a, you know, a movie background and, and, you know, kind of doesn't have the standard W2s, right? They, they, they kind of go project to project. And in talking with that, the loan officer happened to be a part of the, the circle that we were talking in and they're like, we can do that, right? And all of a sudden, these super producers who were totally turned off by, you know, by what they had said earlier, held in their face, they were, that's the deal, right? Is that now they had a solution for a problem that this agent had? Well, if I hadn't been asking these questions about what's your biggest challenge right now, then the loan officer would have never got any business. I mean, yeah, that's a key distinction right there. If I heard you correctly, what you're saying is they spent all these, this time asking questions that weren't specific to how they can help them in their business. And when somebody finally asked that question, they was like, aha, we found something, right? We can help you with. Yeah, the difference here is it wasn't a sales question. I mean, you know, what, what, you know, what are you looking for in a mortgage professional? Come on. If you're a mortgage professional, I shouldn't know by the way. We know. Yeah, exactly. And we know the shoe's going to drop, right? We know if whatever I answer, you're going to tell me how you fit those three things, right? Right. And it's just like, I mean, I could see them roll their eyes as we were having this lunch. And I was just like, I wanted to kick them underneath the table and go, no, no, no, no, no, you know, but here's the thing. So in the end, I'm asking all of them. Like, you guys, you guys rocked it on the panel. You did a great job. You know, you got everything going on, but let me ask you, you know, what's your biggest challenge right now? I really want to know. And so they were telling me their challenges. And one of the challenges, the mortgage professional who hired me could, could solve. Hmm. And it took that question about that, I mean, that's a personal question. What's your biggest challenge right now? Yeah. And so this is a really great point to hang out here for a second because it's so true that, you know, it's great as the fact that you can close in 10 days and that may help on a certain percentage of deals and that's all well and good, but not everybody needs to close in 10 days. You know, you talk about in your book about becoming a lighthouse and that resonates with me so much because I think that's really the point of differentiation. And that's what we are both talking about here is when you're coming from that place of how can I help setting aside my, you know, I've got to get alone on my pipe or I close in 10 days or I'm great because of this or that or, you know, in house, whatever all the usual laundry list of features that you throw at people, that is kind of like, you know, people have a defense shield built up to that and all that stuff just bounces off. But when you start asking those heart-centered questions about, you know, hey, how can I be a lighthouse? How can I serve? That's what you're talking about. I think that's where you begin to reposition yourself as a mortgage professional and you're now seen as you said alluded to earlier, I don't even know what he does. Now you're seeing as not a mortgage person, but as somebody who's really trying to make a difference for your local agent community. But that's the key is that they become more interested because you're not acting like everyone else. All these mortgage professionals are in general, are pandering, even the top producers panda in some ways and it's just like, quit it. You know, I think if you just are real and you honestly get curious about how to help that realtor other than mortgages, right, what if I told you the way to get mortgages was to quit worrying about mortgage conversations, right, what if the way to get mortgages was actually to just have conversations with people about what matters to them. So that's the difference, right, we do things completely different. This is a truly a revolutionary approach to sales. We do it differently and here's the beauty, it works faster, it feels better and it works for the longer term. I totally agree with it, I'm a believer and that's why I wanted to have you on because I think this message needs to be shouted loud and clear and I don't know why it is, I mean, people still aren't getting it, right, they're still, maybe because you said that the training still exists out there, go hit the pavement, they're still people teaching coal-calling, you know, I'm on who always says, hey, it's not, I'm not saying coal-calling never works, I'm just saying it sucks and it's not a highly leveraged activity and you're really not coming from that place of, like you said, you immediately are putting your, that's the, this is just a light that went on for me. If you're doing the same thing every other loan officer is doing, you immediately set yourself up to lose. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a cardiologist, I really feel that way. I'm a cardiologist. I cure callus tarts and the sales training for hundreds of years have forced sales people to callus their heart, they've had to callus it, like toughen it up from rejection, they've had to toughen it up from doing things that their dignity would never have them do otherwise, door knocking, right, cold calling, these kind of things. And what we do is we allow people to have businesses that make them feel good, you know, doing good leads to doing well and it's, it's I cure callus tarts, I, I make it so that you know what, not only do you not have to toughen up your heart and, and see rejection every day, but you're actually going to get love from others by loving on others. And, and it, it's not fluff, I want that to be that this is not fluff, this is not theory, this is strategic, it is tactical, it is purposeful, it is not done with everyone. You are not out practicing proactive generosity with everyone. You have specific people who are you, who you are proactively generous with. The other thing is that nobody's teaching proactive generosity, we're the only ones. The flip, the other side too, is too often what happens is people want to reciprocate, they want to help you, but they have no idea how. They just don't know how to help you, or they say something like, well, how can I help you? And, and what does the normal person do? Oh, you know, don't worry about it. And trust me, they, they won't worry about it. But what we teach is that when somebody wants to reciprocate, you say yes, somebody says how can I help you, you say referrals, somebody says what can I do for you? You say referrals, because that's the truth. So give people a way and a reason to, to help you. But the thing is, what if you had, you know, a hundred people a month who were asking you, how can I help you? Would you like that? Yeah. Who wouldn't? Yeah. Yeah. So the way to do that is to ask a hundred people a month how you can help them. It's that simple. So, so, all right. Let's pause. So, so, so a real world application of that is what makes them, make call your past database. Send the thank you cards. I know you talk a lot about that. What are some more, you know, ways to get that flow happening? Yeah. So, tons of ways, right? So, so the handwritten notes are a great follow up tool. And the handwritten notes are great for continuing the conversation. And honestly, it, it should be a part of every professional's repertoire, right? A handwritten note is, is it, it should be standard practice for everybody. It just, it just should, just part of the habits. And it's good for, like you meet with someone, a handwritten note can actually create another reason for another call or another appointment. And it, and it continues the, the conversation and building of the relationship. You know, where you're going to get the most bang for your buck is, hey, listen, observing on Facebook, observing what happens in people's lives, and then dropping a handwritten note that's out of the blue. I'll give you an example just from Monday of this week is, I had a client who I found out who got a new dog. They got a Jack Russell Terrier. Well, interestingly enough, well, I don't know if you're familiar with Jack Russell Terriers, but they should be called Jack Russell Terriers because they are a terror, especially when they're younger. And I will tell you that in the wrong hands, a Jack Russell can tear up a house, tear up a family and tear up a kid. So I went to Amazon and there are a lot of books on the history and the training and the care of Jack Russell Terriers. And so I got a couple of those books and I sent it to them. Now I, you know, they'll be delivered today or tomorrow, so I don't know what the reaction on that was, but it cost me like, I think it was a total of $9.99, less than 10 bucks. And boom, out of the blue, I sent them a couple of books on a specific thing that had just happened in their life. You know, and it doesn't always take money or that kind of thing. It's thought plus action that is the formula for success, have the thought, right? And sometimes you're going to need your computer to trigger the thought. Like one of the things that we do for all of our clients and all of our clients are doing for their clients is the day before the birthday call, right? And the day before the birthday call is, I mean, people have talked about maybe doing a birthday call or, but in today's world, how are most people communicating on birthdays? They're posting on Facebook, right? They're saying happy birthday and in today's world, nobody reads them all. I mean, none of them mean anything, right? That's so funny about quantity over quality is, or quality over quantity is, when there's a quantity, there's no quality, there's no meaning, right? So how do we, how do we become the quality answer in a world of quantity? And the way we do that is different to ourselves in little ways that are better. And that's the formula, so the formula is the day before the birthday call. So Jeff, when's your birthday? May 31st. So May 30th, I get a reminder on my CRM, right? It pops up and says, Jeff's birthday is tomorrow, give him a call. So I call you and I say, hey, Jeff, I just, listen, I know you're birthdays tomorrow and I am full of appointments tomorrow. I'm literally booked solid all day long, but I could not let my day tomorrow come and go without calling and wishing you the happiest birthday ever. I hope you have an awesome day tomorrow. I hope it continues through the weekend and I hope this is your best year yet. Have a great one. I just wanted to call and say happy birthday. Click. Wow, yeah, that stands out. So what, so why? By the way, how much did that cost me? About 30 seconds of your time. Yeah, yeah, okay, so that's a good thing now and it cost me no money. Right, right. So what's the benefit? What is the power of that? Well, I can tell you just, you know, even walking through that, you know, kind of scenario. I mean, the benefit is you completely isolate yourself as being totally unique and different and the fact that you cared enough to call in advance, make time out of your busy schedule. You obviously put it in the context that, you know, unfortunately won't be able to call tomorrow on your actual birthday, but it just says that you were thinking about me and that's authentic. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so here's the other thing, you know, there's two places to be if you want to be memorable. You can either be first or you can be last. If you're in the middle, you're not going to be memorable. Well, with a birthday, you don't want to be last, so you want to be first. Here's the other thing that's cool. Facebook explodes on your birthday, May 31st. Here's what's cool is your first thought in the back of your head is, oh, that's nice, but they didn't call Michael, Michael called. Right. So with every 200 posts on Facebook, you get a little positive zing. Yes. Yes. No, that's power. I love it. I love it because it's a very, very simple, you know, the old Jim Roan thing, right? It's simple to do, it's simple not to do. Yeah, that's all my things are simple, right, because I'm a really simple person. I am like the champion for average or below average people. I am. I mean, because people can look at me and they're like, dang, that guy does not look like an exact Jeff Zimper and I don't thank God, right? I mean, you're a sharp looking guy and me, I'm like a little overweight, a little short, you know, a little less intelligent, a little, I mean, I'm like the average guy. And all my stuff is super simple that when you add it all together, see, I don't, I get over 500 referrals a year and I would say that we're the most referred coaching and training company in the nation. I would say that with and I would include Canada in that and and now here's the thing. Are we the biggest? No, we're not. Right? We're not. But I would say we're the most referred because the way is other, what's funny is, is if you want to work with a coach, wouldn't you want to coach with the most referred coach? And that's who we are. Right? I mean, we don't do any advertising. You know, other companies are using internet marketing to add, what's funny is the referral people are using internet marketing to grow their business, isn't that interesting? Now it's not that we don't use internet marketing, but the biggest majority of our coaching clients are referred to us from our current coaching clients. And I would say we might be the only coaching company in the nation where we have more current clients than we have former clients. And that's something I take a lot of pride in. We have longevity. People coaching with us for four years, for five years, for three years, a lot of two years. And you know, we keep them. Why do we keep them? We're always going above and beyond. So you know, it's one, here's another, you know, one another nugget, right? We're like, you know, what's the tactical? So we do the day before the birthday call and I will tell you, I just got a message yesterday from a top producer out in New Jersey. He did it. He got an immediate call back and ended up, it turns out that his sister, the sister of the person who called him, is going to be looking for a move. They're going through a divorce, unfortunately. But the sister is going to be looking for a house. This is the mortgage professional who got the referral. So and then the other one is if you're not doing anniversary calls, then you're missing out. You've got to do an anniversary call to the buyer who closed, but not just the buyer who closed. You should call either the day before or the day of and call the agent who was either listing it or the buyer side, whatever makes the most sense for you and say, listen, I don't know if you know it, but Cindy, this is Cindy's two year anniversary for her house. We first of all want to call and say happy anniversary to you for working on that. I know we work a lot together nowadays, but at that time, we were still developing our relationship. So happy anniversary on that. But here's the other thing. You may want to call Cindy. At two years, she could now sell the home and retain all the equity. So we're not only calling the the borrower or the buyer. And here's what's so funny is that there's still refinances happening. I mean, there's people that, yeah, I mean, I could tell you story after story of people who are moving up and keeping the same payment. Well, you know, so that one thing does so many things with that one phone call. And I love the fact that you're saying call the agent as well because we all know, right, there's that percentage of agents that aren't making those calls to their past database, which is why or none. Yeah, right. We don't need to get into the stats on that. But what's really cool about that is this addresses them. Sure, you hear this common issue or complaint from loan officers, which is, you know, how do I get more referrals to my realtors? Well, you just gave a great example right there. If you went to your past database and just called them all on their home buying anniversary the day before, versus sending out your standard templated newsletter, right? Yeah, definitely right. No, 100% right. Your newsletter's not getting read anyway, quit sending it. I mean, that's the truth. It's not the truth. I mean, so it's, I mean, seriously, realtors, same with you guys, quit sending your market updates, nobody cares. It, it, they don't. I mean, why do we send a market it? It's the only thing we know to send. And it's what the market has said and the industry has said to send nobody cares. How about those recipes, though? Oh, you know what, you know what, send it along with the seeds. And I'll grow my own recipes, right? It's like what the end of magnets, you know, it, it's a, I'll tell you, we're in a funny industry that we will buy whatever shiny squirrel comes up next. And, you know, QR codes were made famous for how bad of a flop they were in real estate. I mean, it's, it's, it's just one of those where, you know, I, I wish the talking house would come back. It's, it's, it's one of those where it's like, we try, here's what's really sad is we have coaching clients who explode, like literally go from getting four referrals a year to getting a hundred referrals a year. And they make all this money and then they go and buy a website. And it's like, what are you doing? Well, I've got all this money. I need to expect, no, just keep it. Pay the government. It's all good. And then it's like, here's the other thing. Why not reinvest in your sphere in your repeat referral and sphere? That's who got you here, but that's what we do. We take all that is an industry. We're so screwed up. We take the money we make from our referral sources and from our repeat clients and from our sphere. And we reinvest it in shiny, blanky lights and things that never get us any business. I mean, as much attention that's been paid on internet, website marketing and internet leads and Zillow leads and all the things, all the attention internet leads actually went down last year. You know, I'm wondering if the attraction there, Michael, is because people are trying to outsource the manual labor. Yeah. Yeah, because what you're talking about, you know, does require, you know, that quote manual labor. Now, if you, if you call making some phone calls manual labor, right, to pass clients, well, then maybe we need to work on perception. But I, I think that's why people tend to go to that bright shiny object stuff because they're like, man, if I could just automate this and like get all these, you know, I could go to the beach more. Yeah. Well, here's the thing is you can make calls from the beach. That's true. So that's, that's a, and there's a happy medium. There's a, you know, doing nothing and making a lot of money will not work. Right. But the problem is that's what we see, right? When people are, are a true success, quote unquote, we see them when they've got all the leverage in place. But what we didn't see is them working their butt off for years, right? So there's no such thing as an overnight success. And the whole thought of doing nothing and making a lot of money is a myth. But here's the thing. You can do a few little things and make a lot of money. So, so the key is doing the little things that make you a lot of money. One of those is phone calls. One of those is events. If you're not doing events for your business, you're missing out. Oprah made her money by being generous with events, with audiences. That's it. She took an opportunity, which is an event. She had an event, which is a show. And she was generous to the people in that show. And she's now, if not the richest woman on earth, one of them. Yeah. And it was based on generosity plus an event, which was her show. So take an event, add generosity and you'll explode. It's the, and I will tell you that that's the secret sauce to what we teach is we teach people how to get hundreds of referrals through client appreciation parties and events small and large throughout the year. And we have all of our coaching clients put together an event schedule that turns out hundreds of referrals a year when they were getting maybe 20 or less in years before. Awesome. So if you're more professional, you should be partnering and getting an event strategy. You should have the ability, bring in a certified meaning planner or bring in someone who is a party planner or loves to be a plan parties as part of your differentiation strategy to approaching realtors. And then when you meet realtors, say, why don't you have a client appreciation party? We'll do all the planning. We'll set it up. We'll, we'll, you know, we'll do everything all you have to do is show up. And, and that is a differentiator. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, I mean, housewarming parties. Same thing. There's so many leveraged, leveraged activities like that. As you know, I'm a big believer in events and you talk about doing little things to make a lot of money makes me think of Jim Rohn again, right? Little hinges swing big doors. That's right. Yeah. And so that's what I love about your actions is that it doesn't require a huge investment of, of money. It just requires a little bit of your time and to be smart with it. So I think that's awesome. Man, great stuff today. I know you've got to run. So I don't want to keep you too late. We could keep talking like for hours, 20, 2016, the year of the sphere real quickly. What do you want to close out with? Where do you want to direct people who want to learn more about you? Hmm. Well, thank you for that. You can always check Facebook.com slash referral guru. Referral guru is the, is the slash. But I wish somebody else chose that for me many years ago. And, and unfortunately, you can't change it once you get over, you know, 50,000 fans or whatever. So Facebook.com slash referral guru is a great start. Check, check out referco.com. You know, one of the things that we're launching this year and the year of the sphere is, is, is a model that I truly believe is going to revolutionary, revolutionize how people do repeat and referral. So, so that's coming out this year. And I'm very excited about that. You know, we've also got 30 mornings.com, three zero mornings. M-O-R-N-I-N-G-S.com, where we're helping people create their ultimate morning ritual and give themselves an hour head start on every day. So instead of during the day, feeling behind or feeling overwhelmed, they feel ahead and they are ahead and they feel under control. And so 30 mornings.com has been a raging success, thousands of people already signing up to be a part of that and would love to, would love to welcome. And one last thing, Jeff, is we need mortgage professionals in our referral database. We have a free referral date. It's free, yep. And I know a lot of people charge to be part of their, their referral database. But we have so many referrals going between members that we need mortgage professionals from the United States and Canada. And they can sign up for that for free at free referral database.com. And tell them to make sure to put in there that the cities that they serve because that is, I mean, we have a frustration point is that we have people who want to, I just got a referral for Camden, New Jersey. They want to, they want to get a mortgage. They want to buy a home for their college aged kid who's going to school in Camden. And we, you know, we don't have a lender in the area. And this, this happens every day. So my team has a frustration with placing mortgage referrals. And for refires, we have people who, you know, want to refi and they come to us because they trust us. So free referral database.com. They can sign up there. They get into our database. I trust them because, you know, they're with you. So if they're, if they're interested in the mortgage market, uh, institute, then guess what? They're, they're, they're our kind of people. You're our kind of people. Oh, thank you. I'll make sure I put all those links in the show notes so people can look to that. So you'll find that in there easy to get connected with Michael. Sounds like a great opportunity to, uh, get exposure to what you're doing over there, which I know is making a big difference. So thank you for your time. I know you're incredibly busy. Keep doing what you're doing, man. You're, you're, you are a lighthouse in the industry. So thank you. Well, and Jeff, thank you too. You, you are as well. You let your light shine. You stand strong and tall. Uh, you help people and guide them. And there are some people, uh, who don't necessarily need your, or I help, but they're submarines, right? They're the low of the low. So we're not worried about them anyway. It's the ones that need our help that we'll shine our light and help, uh, to no bound. And, uh, you know, here's the thing is, is I really appreciate what you do, Jeff, and, and the value that you provide every single day to this industry and, and you're making it better. So thank you. Well, thank you. I think both of us were cut from the same cloth. We're just trying to make a difference and do it authentically, you know? So thank you for listening today. Once again, the mortgage marketing radio and, uh, is your host, Jeff Zimphur. We will see you on the next show. 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. Hey, guys, what's up? Real quick. 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