EP #60: How to Overcome "What's Your Rate" and Build A Superstar Team

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute. It's your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey, listeners, Jeff Simper, welcome to this week's episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Hope you are doing fantastic. Okay, once again, would you like a free t-shirt, a free mortgage marketing radio t-shirt? I would love to hear your comments, your reviews on the podcast. How do you get yourself a free t-shirt? Simply leave us a review, leave us a comment at iTunes or Stitcher, something to go over there, right? We're ever listening to the podcast and leave us a review. We've got up to five stars. You can leave us some comments. What's the positive difference that this podcast has been making for you and your business? I would love to hear that. And here's how you get the free t-shirt. I'm ready. Listen, go leave us a review. I appreciate you doing that. 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They're nice and soft and fitting and it's got our beautiful mortgage-marketing radio logo on it. So you can proudly wear, say you're a follower, you're part of the tribe here at MMR. All right, so let's get into this week's episode. My very special guest, Stacey Weishar, out of sea at all. Stacey is just a superstar. After taking a 10-year hiatus from the business, she's back in it and back in a strong way with 2017, going to be coming in at over $40 million and over 100 units. Phenomenal success. And I saw Stacey speak at the Tadunk and Sales Mastery event and I just took two pages of copious notes because she has a process which creates what she calls. I love it. Delightful refuge. Think about that. When you think about the mortgage process, do you think your clients think about it's a delightful refuge? Oh, imagine if they did. And that's exactly what Stacey has architected. It's a process that leads with education and transparency, that delivers availability and responsiveness, executes with excellence and pays it forward. And so we're going to have Stacey unpack and walk us through this whole entire process, how she's designed it. We're going to get into her process flow sheet that her and her team works every week to come to the table and talk about process improvement ideas. We're going to unpack her morning ritual, how she gets prepared for the day to take on the challenges and opportunities of the day. We're going to dive into how she actually, when she started over, how did she get started with absolutely no real-territorial relationships and how did she turn that around to her advantage? How did she cross-sell listing agents, how did she do her business in a way that allows her to thoroughly enjoy the business? By the way, it's all about your why. Do you know what your why is? Why are you in this business? If not, listen to this podcast. Stacey, I might give you some ideas. I might re-ignite a fire in the passion for being in this business. So please to have Stacey, as my guest, let's get into this week's show. Hey, Stacey, welcome to the show. Hi, I'm so glad to be here, Jeff. Thank you for being here. I know you're extremely busy and I'm grateful for the opportunity to carry on the conversation that I saw you have from stage at the Todd Duncan Sales Mastery event, so thank you so much. I gave the formal intro about who Stacey is, what she's all about, but how about a personal recap of you, your biz, whatever you want to share there? Yeah, so it's an honor to be here, so thank you. My story is interesting. I bought my first house about 18 years ago, so I'm going to age myself a bit, prior to all this fancy technology that we could have used today like Zillow and Redfin. And I had a pretty horrific experience. My realtor was non-existent. My loan officer was even more non-existent, even worse. I ended up buying a home. I was working at Microsoft at the time, my background's in software. And I thought, this cannot be this difficult to figure out. I ended up in a product in an arm that I didn't think I was in and everything changed from what I originally had thought. So I quit my job at Microsoft and I went into this business with the intention of educating myself. I thought, I'm going to get in for six months. I'm going to educate myself because I know this is not the last time I'm going to buy. And I was surprised by the people that have bought houses around me that still didn't understand mortgage financing in the process. That six months turned into six years of my life, ironically enough. And I ended up running a dream venture for the largest builder in the state of Washington at the time. And the largest bank in the United States. Phenomenal experience, you know, lived through a beginning of the recession in the downturn. There was two of us were co-running this. We had two companies under this one joint venture. And I looked at my friend at the time and said, they don't need both of us. And I got recruited back into software to help launch some startups during that time. My husband and I were struggling with, you know, having kiddos, which was really sad and unfortunate. But then the universe blessed us with our first child and right away our second child, just like that. It's kind of funny how those things happen. I was just elated with my kids, obviously, but I was not happy. I didn't want to get out of bed every day. I was pretty miserable in terms of what I was doing. I was going to work. I was going through the motions. And I just thought, this is not what I want to do. I want to make a bigger impact in people's lives. I'm not feeling fulfilled. So there's an amazing talk, Ted Talk, on Finding Your Why, and Simon Sinek, yeah, Simon Sinek. And I had seen that video and I thought about it and I went back and watched it again. And I read it the books and I had a business coach at the time. We went through this 90-day process and I came out of this 90-day process that I was happiest when I was a loan officer, which I had had lots of jobs in various software companies. And I thought, this is crazy. This is not what my education is and this is not what I anticipated for my life. But it was a very thoughtful process I went through and I came out that I was happiest when I was a loan officer. And I'll tell you why, Jeff, it all started with my why. So my why, personally, is that I believe in building relationships based on trust, so that everybody that I love, like, know and come in contact with, feels safe. And the safety piece of it is really important to me and that's based on things that happened in my childhood. Safety was just really to the core of my being, right? So this building trust based on safety, right? So I thought, how can I bring that into my business? And this is how, this is how my team and I do this every day is, and I tell clients this and wheelchair partners, we build relationships based on trust so that everybody we come in contact with feels safe. And we bring that into the mortgage business so that our clients find what we experience or we call delightful refuge around what I believe to be the most emotional, sizable, and financially impactful purchase of their lives. And that doesn't matter if you're an investor or if you are a first-time home buyer, that sense of delightful refuge, I really want people to think about it, right? And then there's the how we do that. So the how how we do that sounds really pretty and I tell people that. So it doesn't that sound pretty, like, oh, you know, it's a beautiful refuge, like, if they're like, it should be in a spa, right? Exactly, I just think of that. But it's true. And then the how is really the most important piece, right? So the how is number one and probably most important is as we lead with education and transparency around mortgage financing. So I spend a lot of time educating my clients, education, education, education. It's so important. Now, do I get into the nuances of, you know, you have to do this. You have to and I'm not talking about guidelines. I'm talking about education around the process and I'm talking about education around around the math, around the numbers, right? And then transparency, right? We want to make sure that we're super transparent. Hey, you need to execute this because of, you know, you have to do X because of why. So we create that transparency, which I think all too often we forget because we do this every single day. So we feel like everybody else should just know, but they don't, right? They're buying your six house. They don't know. The second thing is responsiveness and availability. I believe that, you know, the digital world we live in is really fast, obviously, right? You can get things at the snap of a button, step up your fingers and just, you know, food of lunch arrives at my desk. It's great. It's awesome. It's, it is amazing. But it's also creates this culture that we live in where we want it now and we need it now. And that responsiveness and availability is critically important. You know, this is not a nine to five job in my world. It's just not. And I tell my clients, look, it's not nine to five, am I going to meet you on a Saturday and Sunday? No, because that's really my cherished time with my family, unless we just really can't figure it out and button it down in different, different time. But I'm going to be available to you on the phone and I'm going to be responsive to whatever you, whatever you need. Seattle happens to be a very competitive market. So we have to be very, very fast and we have to shrink that closing time down. So our clients can compete with cash. So that's number two. And then the third thing is what I tell everybody to is executing with excellence. I am maniacally focused on the process for all of our borrowers, which I'll talk about in a minute. But I always want to be turning that flywheel, just pushing that flywheel a little bit every single time so that we're improving. Now executing with excellence, my team and I are not perfect. I tell clients this, you know, we're not perfect. I'm not perfect. So, you know, don't expect us to be perfect. But what I do expect is is that we go above and beyond for you to get your offer accepted to make sure that we close on your home. We do a lot of the heavy lifting in the front so that when you actually get into contract, it's pretty much smooth sailing, right? From there. And so I give examples of what that means to execute with excellence. And then the last thing is my team and I and my business, we all give back. We give back into our community. That is really important to us. And I believe in giving back to make our world and our community better for everyone. And so that's those are our house. Okay. That's my why. That's my help. Yeah. Thank you for architecting that process. What's obvious to hearing you go through that is that you've thought about it a lot. It's been very intentional in your design and your thought on that, yeah? Oh, 100%. Yeah. My husband was, my husband tells me he's like, you sound like a broken record. And he's like, but it's really good. And I'm like, well, that's because it's genuine, right? It comes from a really place of being genuine. And you're not reading from a script. I mean, you know that you know that everything you just rolled off, you know, at your core, you live it. You breathe it. Yes. 100%. What comes in, what comes from, you know, what I say is it's, it's sincerely genuine. And but took me a long time to get there. I mean, I went through emotions as you know, vice president of sales and marketing for various software companies and I, you know, talk to talk, but the why was really never there for me. And that was kind of what drove my shift back into this business. I mean, our business is really difficult. People think that it's easy. It's so not. It's not easy. No transaction is the same. It's difficult. But, you know, you've got to, you've got to figure out what your why is as a person and bring that back into why you get out of bed every day and do what you do. Yeah. And I love that because if I just, if look, if we just stop to the tape right here, the biggest takeaway for those listening, hopefully that you get from this is the investment you've made station personally, emotionally, you know, like you said, two key a while. I'm sure you had various iterations of this and your why and getting more clear on what that looked like. And look, just what you rolled out here just in the last three minutes is a point of differentiation and helps you win business, convert real to referrals, helps you get more clients, helps you move away from the price conversation just from the sheer fact of where you're coming from. So, internally and emotionally. Oh, 100%. And that's interesting that you say that because I've had to go through really hard exercises last year and define my client and defining my client means that my why kind of aligns with what their needs are, you know, my business why aligns with what their needs are. You know, I don't expect to be everybody's solution and mortgage finance in my team night. We don't expect that. But I know when we found the right client. So I've defined my client is interest rate important. Yes. Does everybody want to talk about interest rate? The first email I get, can you tell me your rates? How do I get pre-approved? Well, it's really lovely to meet you, Jeff, personally. I'd love to jump on a call with you for 10 minutes to understand more about your home ownership goals. Do you have 10 minutes? Everybody has 10 minutes. Of course they do. And I get on the phone and, you know, I ask really emotional questions, you know, one of my favorite questions to ask people is what is it about purchasing a home or an investment property or whatever it is now is so important to you. Not why. But what is it about that? Getting to that emotional cause, we're taking notes, asking questions. And then I just kind of, by the way, let me ask you a question, sorry to interrupt your flow there. But I'm wondering when you ask that question, if you find people generally comply or what percentage of the people just fall back into their, their mode of rate. I have lots of the process in my life and the process is I take 10 minutes in the morning to read because that's the only time I have to read. I listen to autables on the way to work and stuff, but I read 10 minutes in the morning. And there's a book, Go Giver Selmore. It's a great book. Go Giver by Bob Bird. Yeah. Go Giver. But there's a second book called Go Giver Selmore. Oh, right. And in that book, he asked the question, what is it about? And if you phrase something and what is it about those words actually go back into the back of your brain and pull out emotion. And that's really what I want to get from with people. I want to know what's driving them. I really want to understand the emotional decision, right? And investors have that too. The emotional decision to buy is because one of my investors, I believe that it's totally the keeping up with the Joneses, right? He wants to be a big investor. His friends are investors. He wants to be an investor too. Other things are, one guy was like, look, I want mailbox money when I turn 16 because my parents didn't have, they relied on social security and their retirement and the market crash and they didn't have anything. There is, there's emotional factors back there, right? So you can't get to that emotional piece of it. And some people are like, oh, just because I just really feel like I need to buy a house. Well, what is it about feeling like you need to buy a house that's so important to you? I mean, I just keep asking that question over and over again. And I'm telling you, I get, I get some really good stuff and it's sincere. I really want to know, I truly want to know because if I can understand what's driving them emotionally to go buy a condo, a house, an investment, whatever, then I can help make that process really. I can bring it back to that delightful refuge every single time I can, right? Well, and that also, yeah, I love that because it creates a more of a connection with people. It does build trust in a way in that you've taken time to care more about just, you know, rate fee term, which is your average loan officer. Yeah, I don't quote rates over the phone. I just don't, you know, I tell people that I'm like, look, I'm not going to quote you a rate. You're not even in contract. Why does it matter? What do you mean? Yeah. So let's unpack that a little bit because I've heard many people say that and I'd like you to carry. You just went into kind of their response on that. And I imagine you still get some people who, but yeah, tell me more. And again, this goes back to defining my client. Some people just, that's just what they want. And so I say, go to go to bankrate.com or diekitech.com and go find that. There you go. That's where you should go. And I, what I say is, you know, people say, well, what's the rate day? And I said, well, it's nice to meet you, Jeff. Can I ask you a few questions first? Sure. You know, are you in contract right now? No, I'm not. Okay. So, you know, and then I just go into my series of questions. But the, the rate thing really is, you know, they're like, well, I just want to know the rate for the third year fixed. And I said, has anybody explained to you how interest rates work? Well, no. Okay. Well, would you like to learn? Of course they would, right? Because they don't understand. Right. So, you know, explaining, you know, interest rates change every single business day. And sometimes they change multiple times a day. I mean, you know, pick up the newspaper. There's so many crazy things happening in our nation and in the world that impacts the secondary market. Do you want to, do you want to learn about that? Well, yeah. What do you mean? And so, you know, I really try to hook people in with education. But I don't, I don't just throw out, you know, the rate standard 30 or 64 percent. But who cares? It doesn't matter. And I don't discount the fact that they want that information. You know, I'm like, interest rates is really important. But here's what I think is more important. You know, and I bring it all, I always bring it back to my why. I always bring it back to the story. And when I do it, why I do what I do, I choose to do my job. I love my job. And then, you know, I get what's really driving them. And then I talk about the process. And my process is very, very specific. I don't deviate from my process ever. Let's talk about that. Because I know you like to meet face to face. And you share the response on stage when somebody says, I don't have the time to come in. What do you say? Well, I tell clients, I'm like, look, the process, once we've kind of gone through the initial 10 minute meeting, I just say, you know, so here's the easy part. Now we get to the easy part. And they're like, oh, yeah, it's time. So excited. What's the easy part? And I'm like, we're going to do an application. You're going to do it online. It's going to take you 10 minutes. Ball my directions. Otherwise, we're going to do on the phone together right now. And then I'm going to send you documentation and you can get all that. And then I'm going to, I'm going to pre-underwrite everything. My team's going to pre-underwrite everything. And then we're going to have what I, what I've coined my springboard conversation. And they're like, what's that? And I'm like, well, you're just jumping on a little springboard. So imagine yourself just jumping on a little board, springing up and down. I'm like, you haven't found a house yet, right? So you're getting you fully, fully pre-underwritten, pre-approved, whatever their situation is, right? And then we have our springboard conversation. And that's an hour long conversation. And people go, and I go, so in that conversation, you're going to learn so much. That springboard conversation is going to be based on a price of X. Wherever we determine that needs to be. And we're going to sit down and we're going to go through a fee worksheet in detail. And I'm going to explain to you what the secondary market is. I'm going to educate you on the secondary market. I'm going to educate you on your tax benefits as a homeowner. What I do with that tax money. I always will tell you what I do. I'll never tell you what to do. My job is to educate you on options. You make the choice. And then people go, I don't have an hour. And I say, really? I don't have an hour. I don't have an hour. And I said, okay, well, you know, have you bought a car? And they go, well, yeah. And I go, okay, have you financed that car, the dealership? Oh, yeah. And I said, how long have you spent at the dealership when you bought a car? I'm not like that. Well, how long have you spent, Jeff, when you bought a car? Yeah, too long. Two hours. I mean, mate, if you're lucky, right? On a good day. Yeah. So it's like crazy. How long people think I believe people spend more time with the car dealership with the finance person. Then they do with their mortgage banker or broker when they buy a house. And that does not make sense to me. And I tell people that I said, look, if you don't have an hour to sit down and understand what you just agreed with me on, the most emotional, sizable, and financially impactful purchase of your life, regardless that this is your first home or your 15th home or your 15th investment property, you will learn something in that hour. That's my goal. And I, and people go, okay. You know, and I have clients over the west coast, so I'm not going to fly to California or wherever, but I, I would, you know, it's an hour on the phone. We're going to, we are going to talk for an hour. We're going to sit down face to face for an hour. Everybody that's local, we, we sit down, we, we need, I need to see people face to face. If it's over the phone, you know, it actually ends up being longer, I think, because I want to make sure that they really understand everything. And at the end of that hour conversation, they're on their springboard conversation, the little springboard. So, okay, now you jump on your springboard and I'm like, push, I'm going to push you off in the market and go spring forward. Go shopping. Go shopping. And they say, can I have a pre-approval letter? And I said, absolutely not. Like, what do you mean? And I go, I go, no, you can't have a pre-approval letter. I need to be very involved every time you put an offer in a house, right? I don't just hand out pre-approval letters. I want to make sure that I'm involved when you're putting an offer at home, especially in Seattle. Other markets are a bit different. Our market's competitive. Yeah. And I like, I don't like surprises. I want control over the process. And once we're in contracts, it's, it's our turn to rock and roll, right? So, I want to make sure it's smooth. Hmm, very interesting. Wow. You definitely are controlling that transaction all the way. That's awesome. Oh, percent. I want to make sure. Yep. I want to be an integral part of it. And, you know, I see myself as a resource for the, the agents. I want to be, I want to be an extension of them when they, when they submit offers. I want to make sure that our clients are positioned in the right way with a listing agent from the sellers. And I always ask my clients at the end of conversations. I had one investor who was super reluctant to sit down with me. I've done this before. And I said, okay, I said, at the end of the conversation, I said, so was this valuable? And he said, unbelievable. And I said, did you learn something? He goes, I learned like six things. And I said, he said, I had no idea. And I'm like, so it's worth, it's worthwhile. And my goal is always to, for somebody to learn something, always, always, always. That's my goal. Right. And so again, this goes back to like your original why and your delightful refuge and kind of your purpose and mission is that you do want to educate, lead with education and transparency. And what I get from you is, you know, that's the ultimate goal. So if they decide to then, you know, do business with you, awesome, we win. If they decide not to for whatever reason, hey, that's okay. It's going to happen. And you're still living out your mission, right? Totally. Like I said, not everybody's my client. And I have people that just, you know, they don't want to do that. And that doesn't resonate with them. Our, my team and I are, you know, our mission doesn't resonate with them. And that's okay. That's totally okay. So, you know, let me ask you a question then. So how many deals would you say? I don't know if you can track this, but just roughly what percentage, you know, are you letting go because people don't fit, you know, your model. I would say probably about, well, you used to be higher, but once I've defined my client, it's been about, it's probably about 5 to 10%. And that because it's not just about the B to C, right? It's not just meat of the consumer. It's also meat of the meat of the broker, the real estate agent for brokers in Washington state. So that has been really important for me too. And that's changed my business because I want to work with referral partners who are focused on the same thing. And it's, you know, like attracts like, right, Jeff? I mean, we all, we all know that like attracts like. And so that's why my, the conversion rate has gone up is because I've been really good at defining who I work with as a referral partner. Well, let's talk about that then a little brief session on your agent, you know, prospecting marketing strategy, how you identify the right agents. Is there a process you go through? Yeah, I mean, I, and the, if when I got back in this business, my, my boss was like, I don't hire people that don't come from the industry. You've been out for 10 years. And I said, well, I mean, they're going to sink or swim. So we're both on the same page, right? Like, we know what my weakness is. Yeah. So I just was maniacally focused on meeting with two new referral partners a week. And that's still my goal. If it's not a new referral partner, it's saying down to me that I, you know, respect. And when we can sit down and, and yeah, totally. And so it's two people a week. And that's what I did. I just focused on meeting two people, like two people, like two people, like two people, like two people, like two people, like, and then. Um, as you start to grow your business, um, my referral partners, that's how I grew my business. And then we do mostly purchase transactions. We do very few refinance. I didn't have a book of business last year when everybody was refining their books. I didn't, I did not. I think that's, I think I did like four refinance of last year or so sad. Um, so, you know, it was really about finding those right referral partners, cultivating those relationships, making sure that, you know, I'm, I'm taking care of those people that I love to work with. And, um, I'm not talking about going out and spending like $500 on dinner or whatever it is. I'm talking about just like being sincere and talking to them. And, um, I do Friday calls. So every Friday I call for both sides in a transaction, call listing agents and, um, selling agents. And I talk to people. I give them a Friday update. Um, and that has been really huge for my business, growing my business too, because I can see, I can tell almost instantly those listing agents. Who I know will eventually become referral partners and listing agents love that because they're always held in the dark, I believe. And so if you can communicate, just pick a phone and say, Hey, happy Friday. That's kind of my thing. Um, I had one, one listing agent who's become a friend of mine in Idaho who got put into it. You know, you get thrown into a transaction together and you're always like, Oh, who am I dealing with? Um, and he was, he was awesome. And it actually, excuse me, he was a selling agent and he, he would call me because he's an hour ahead of me. He would call me, try to call me first in the morning. And be like, Happy Friday. What's my update? Well, it's seven a.m. So yeah, exactly. Here's the update. It's breakfast. Yeah, exactly. So, um, yeah. So I did two a week. I weeded out those people that I thought would be, you know, really great strong brokers to work with. Hold on. Let me take a pause because people want to know the details. So how did you identify in your local market the agents to go after and what was your process for getting in front of them? So having been out of business for 10 years, I still had a few relationships with people. Um, I reached out to some people and, you know, they are like, I have a lender. Like, well, of course you do. You, of course you have a lender because you're a great producer. But, you know, how many lenders do you have? Well, I have three. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, have, have all three of your lenders been able to execute, you know, have you ever had an issue? Oh my gosh, yes. I've had this issue. What was the issue? Tell me the issue. And I'm like, look, I don't need to be number one because I understand your best friend is, you know, Sarah and you worked with Sarah for 15 years. I'm like, but I want to be your number four or five. So when things go wrong, you can call me, right? Or if you have a question about something, right? Like you get, you're the listing agent on something and you get a lender who's telling you something that doesn't sound right call me. I'll tell you, I'll tell you if that's an overlay or if I'll tell you that's a secondary market requirement. And I've been able to be the hero. And when you're the hero, when you get put into that situation, you're like, you're talking to the agent, you're like, hey, can I? Or like, so and so couldn't do it. So and so could do it. And this is why I'm blah, blah, blah. And they just throw it at you. And I'm like, you probably can't do it. And I'm like, thinking and I'm as, and I'm like, yes, we can. And they're like, what do you mean? How can you do it? And I'm like, well, let me explain the difference between a bank broker correspondent lender, blah, blah. You know, we all have our niches. So there's, everybody can get in a niche. Everybody can be the hero one time. And when you're the hero one time, you earn that business. So I just had to do that with a few people, right? I just had to have a few meetings. I would take people to coffee. I would say, hey, can I bring you lunch? I know you're really busy at your office. Look, I don't want to be your number one. But I want to be your number three. You know, this is why I do what I do. Tell them my why. This is how we execute on our why every day. I know that sounds really pretty. But you, you know, give us a chance. Give us a chance to help your client. And people, people want to be nice for the most part, right? Most people do. And when you, when you become the hero once, and you start cultivating that relationship with, you know, Sally, you're a new broker. You say, hey, Sally, who else in your office is out there? Who do you like working with in your office? Or what other agents to brokers you're like working with? And then they'll tell you and say, hey, Sally, would you do an introduction for me? Oh, my goodness. Of course, I would because you just saved my bottom on the transaction. Of course, I'm going to do that for you. And that's how you do it, right? You just, you just start with one or two, three, be resilient. And then just, and then, and then be the hero, ask for the business. I always ask for the business. I don't have to be your number one. You don't have to send me everything. But let's send you one and see if I do deliver on what I say I'm going to do. And then from there, how would you, because I know lots of people have those conversations. And, but then we need to activate those relationships. When I came back in, obviously, I was like, I'm doing party updates. And I'm like, I don't have anything to update. I don't have anything. I had one refinement when my first deal was refinance. I did four, and that's one of them. I'm like, who do I call? And I just would pick up the phone on those brokers. I would call and be like, hey, you know, Denise, happy Friday. How are you? What's going on? How was your week? You know, just be sincere. Be genuine. Be genuine. Say, oh, I saw that you were just in Mexico on Facebook. Did you have a good trip? I mean, you don't have to be. Can't. Hey, you know, Denise, happy Friday. How are you? What's going on? You don't have to be. Can't. Hey, Denise, the rate today is 3.875. You got anybody? I mean, like that. They don't care. And don't call up and say, hey, do you have any buyers for me? Yeah. Oh, no, I never. I mean, I just, when you're sincere in your genuine, that comes off. And so you want to be sincere in genuine. You know, if it's Friday and you don't have anybody to go talk to, to call, you know, go down to the office and, you know, find somebody. Do your due diligence, do your research on somebody. Say, hey, I see that we know the same person on LinkedIn and pop in their office and drop off a Starbucks gift card. Three bucks. Doesn't have to be a big deal. You don't buy them a mug and a cup and a blah, blah, blah. I mean, hey, I bought you a cup of coffee. You know, you want to be compliant with respa, but you do those thoughtful, genuine things. Right. Right. And yeah, stand out and unique. Way just be consistent, though, with it as well. But ultimately. 100% consistent. That would be the other thing I would say to Jeff. That I said I was going to do something I did it. Mm-hmm. I always did it. And I did it because I said I was going to do and so I put my calendar, no, I put a note of my phone and I would do it. I mean, I had one agent that I called on and no, no, I'm not interested. I'm not interested. I'm not interested. I'm not interested, I'm not interested. I'm not interested. I'm like okay. Can I call you in three months? Fine. They just wanted to get off me off the phone. So I'd call them three months Hi. It states where he comes, who is this? You know, I called you three months ago and you told me to call you in three months. You told me to call you in three months. So it's been three months. I'd love to just sit down and get to know you a little bit better and understand more about your business, you know, I'm not going to tell you what products you have that are unique to you and I'm like look every institution has products that are unique But is that really going to be the best use of your time? I want to learn more about your business like tell me a little bit more about your business and we all say that right but when you're sincere about it, I think people can read that. Absolutely. And you could have a couple of ideas or offers to suggest to them as well, such as, you know, incubating leads that they're not following up with or whatever. Yeah, or hey, I saw your listing. I saw your listing and wherever and your listing looked really pretty. It was a beautiful listing, nice job. You know, who did you use for photography? The video was amazing. I see that's pending. How many offers did you end up getting on it? I mean, no, who you're talking to? No, they're worlds. Do some research. Yeah. Do some research. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. Okay, so real quick in the last few minutes we have, you also shared something at the sales ministry event that I loved and that's your process flow sheet. Kind of your process improvement journal. Take us through that real quickly and then I have a question for you about it once you kind of highlight it. So I like this messy in general. And we all know in this business, it's messy. No transactions is the same and I fully believe that. So, but the process can be consistent. And so my team and I have it. It's very simple. It's just an Excel spreadsheet. It's just, you know, who does what we all have our assigned roles process process process process process process. And then I have a process improvement book that I have on my desk and my team has on their desk. They're very, they're very cute for my awesome assistants that work for me. And they write down process improvement. And then every week we talk about that. What does that mean? Everybody has to come to the table with something because we are not perfect. Right. And so if we are not perfect, we should constantly be pushing that flywheel a little bit to get better and better and better and better. You know, the thing that I do at the end of every transaction is I call my clients and I ask, how was it? You know, I'm so happy for you. Congratulations. How was it? What could we have done better? Oh, you are so great. Well, what could we have done better? Yeah, those disclosures that was soaking blood and you're like, okay, process improvement. Right. And so that's something that we do and we're focused on because I want to make sure that our clients are experiencing delightful refuge around this around this by. And so how do we, how do we create that sort of experience in this? It's by making sure the process is solid, but constantly shifting the flywheel and improving that process every step of the way. And we are not great at everything. I mean, there are things we are not good at. And I know it. Tell me about your team makeup real quick. Who do you got on your team? When I came back in the business, my boss said you have to have an assistant said, well, that's really lovely. I do that. How do I pay for that assistant? But he was right. You know, my job is to sell and I lean on my team operationally. I have Holly and Griffin who work, who work directly for me. They're awesome. Amazing. They both have their, their different strengths and weaknesses. Griffin runs the front end and Holly runs the back end. So back in, meaning when somebody gets into contract, she kind of runs all the way through and then we have our processor Stephanie. And I mean, that's it. We're not, we don't have, I do not have a massive team. I have, I have goals to grow my business and my team will grow, but. Well, and so one of the questions I wanted to ask you and your situation may be a little bit different, but when you were introduced this process improvement journal. Was there any resistance? And what was the adoption? You know what I mean? Do you find people following through? Yeah, my team uses it for sure. And I call it out too. Like I was, I was an error. You have one for yourself too, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I totally have one for myself. And the lot of the marketing and stuff falls on me. We're bank, obviously, so we were marketing department, but they're other things. Some of that pieces that follow me and the sales falls on me, right? Obviously. And though I have process improvements. I call out on myself every, every day. That's great. And so you, you know, when you're meeting, it's like everybody, what's the requirement? Is it like when you meet weekly with your team? Does everybody have to have one? Because I heard you say, hey, they do. Okay. So that's the expectation. Yeah. And they have every week. Sure. Sure. And then you have to decide what's most important or impactful that we can. Yeah. Everybody has everybody. We always have a list. We always have a list, right? And I think that's because no transaction is saying. So we'd like, let's take the Smith file. Okay. On the Smith file, this happened, blah, blah. Here's their room for process improvement on this. Maybe, maybe not, right? Like maybe that is just specific to that situation. Or maybe that's a general. Uh-oh, we need to address that. And here's how we're going to do that. Where are we going to put it into the file? How are we going to make sure that we get in front of that? And real quickly, what is your process? Once you've met with the client, as you mentioned earlier, they do the online app. They come in for the springboard conversation. Once that's done, are you, what does it look like, your involvement in the transaction? So once that's done, you know, I introduced my team. My team is obviously introduced all the way through. I introduced them from the beginning. Um, but my team's introduced and then, you know, it's kind of handed off to Griffin. Griffin and I run the front end. So, um, you know, Griffin, I'm, Griffin's going to follow up with you if she needs anything from you. Um, she's going to send you an email. She's going to send you next steps. You're going to go into initial disclose, you know, a co-disclosure is blah, blah, blah. Um, and then I won't, you know, once you need a pre-approval letter, let us know, we'll give you a customized pre-approval letter every time. If I do know the agent they're working with or I don't know the agent, I want to be introduced to their agent, obviously. And then I'm on the phone with that agent, and I want that agent to make sure that we are there to, you know, 100% supporting them, and making sure that they, they, their offers get accepted for our clients. Um, and then when the client puts an offer on a house, we've done a lot of the heavy lifting up front, right? In terms of, they don't have a lot of questions, right? They don't have as many questions. It's like, okay, you know, this is the price. Here's the thing, you know, here's the payment. Here's what you're told cash to close will be is it's comfortable, you know, whatever. And then Griffin and I both do that, depending on how busy we are. But then once the clients putting an offer in, I call the listing agent. If you guys do not call listing agents, you should every single time. It's crazy to me that people don't call listing agents. Um, so I call the listing agent and I fight like mad to, you know, make that listing agent love us and know that there's a human being on the other end of financing and a team that's going to be. Do an awesome job to not only for our selling agent and the buyer, but also for the listing agent and their sellers, right? So that's, that's, that's our goal. And then once they're in contract, my team takes over. So once they get into contract, my team really takes over because my job is to keep the funnel flowing. Yeah. Yeah, you're out there meeting greeting and right. Um, so anybody like chasing conditions or missing stuff, that's on your team. Yeah, unless there's, so my boss has this great thing, which I think is great. Um, he's like, you know, I'm the dentist. So if there's, if there's a problem, we got to do root canal. I'm going to pop in. And I've kind of taken that same approach. So if there's, you know, if there's a challenge or there's an issue, might do not, I do not strand. I do not leave my team in the dark. I don't want my clients to feel like they're alone. We are, it's an all hands on that approach. If there's an issue, but, and there are issues, right? There are appraisal issues. So there are things that happen back to the listing agent question. So obviously you're calling the listing agent introducing yourself. It's an awesome best practice. Are you at any point, you know, going for a post closing meeting with that listing agent every time. When I think that listing agent is a good fit. And like I said, I've defined my client. So I was going after everybody. And I was like, this isn't, this isn't makes sense. Like, so I know, because I do my Friday calls, and I know those listing agents. I know who I need to call. And those like post post transaction, you know, I'm like, hey, happy Friday. And by that time, if I've established some level of rapport with listing agent, I'm like, I love how you work. I appreciate you, you know, doing X, Y or Z, and whatever they've done. I'd love the opportunity to sit down and talk to you a little bit more and get to know more about you and your business. And I hope our, and they, you know, if they're like, no, no, no, I'm too busy. I'm like, great. Well, I hope our past cross again. I'm going to call you in a few months and just check in. Is that okay? Sure. And then do it. And how do you respond to this may be indicative, though, of it's not the right agent anyway, but if a listing agent says, you know, the classic, well, I'm just the listing agent. Then this is what I say. I say, do you ever have financing issues? And they go, what, of course, all the time? And I go, I go, great. I go, you want to use me as a resource? And they're like, what do you mean? And I'm like, hey, so if you ever have a buyer, you know, that falls apart, call me. I'm happy to just like educate you like because you might be getting told from the lender or from the selling agent, you know, the lender says they blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I said, call me and run it by me. I'll tell you if that's an overlay. If it's a dead deal, or if we can, you know, if we can help it anyway, save it. And that's all people want, right? I mean, progress have their own job to do. And a lot of them know a lot, but they are never going to know everything because they're not in and every day. I don't know everything. And I mean, every day. So yeah, I always say that for sure. Awesome. No, I agree. I'm 100% as a best practice that I slap L.O.'s upside the head. Why aren't you calling your listing agents? Awesome. Very good. Okay. So in closing this out, let's close it on this note. I know you're a big believer in morning rituals, right? Oh, yeah. I am a MMR, um, Miracle morning. Miracle morning, by the way, that's the book, um, which we're going to link to it in the show notes, right? So, and I'm a big believer in that too. And I know it's hard. You've got kids. I got get everybody's listening, right? We've all got stuff competing. So take us really briefly just through how do you, because you know, we know this business is going to be stressful. And there's a lot going on in our, in our life. So how do you just carve out that little bit of time for you to prep for your day? So you're on? Yeah, I wake up early. I mean, I, and I hate it. Believe me, it's my mom went up at 540 day. My husband was like kicking me. I'm like getting up and getting up. Um, but I, it is the only way I get, honestly, that I get centered. And I feel like, you know, I get up, I meditate for 10 minutes. I use headspace. It's a great app. If you don't use it, I use the five minute journal. Also an awesome app. That's where I do my gratitude. It's my affirmations. And, you know, I, my affirmations are, you know, what am I focused on? What are my goals on my long-term goals? They say it's the right, the same thing every single day. It's all on my phone. I have a vision board that's on my phone. I just look at it. Takes me a minute. And then I read for 10 to 15 minutes, depending on it's always, it's not my real simple magazine that's been sitting there forever. That really, really loved to pick up is, um, you know, it's, it's an educational piece of book. And, and I have to tell you, I've just become an MMR in the last year. And it's really been transformative. And, and, and then I tried to exercise for 30 minutes. And I use a bootcamp hub. Bootcamp hub. Is that a website? It is. Um, Jonathan is, Jonathan was a speaker, actually, it sales mastery. And it's a, it's, I don't have, I do not have an hour. I used to go to the gym and do tabata and take an hour. I do not have an hour in my day. So it's anywhere from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. And I just get on my computer and I work out right there in my kitchen dining room area. And I'm done. And then by that time I get there. But I bang it all over for you five minutes and two an hour and it's done. And you are, you're like, exactly. You're energized. You're prepped for the day. You're balanced. Your energy is good. You know, you're, you're, you've kind of like got that armor on ready to take on the day. Yeah. And if I don't do it, I don't feel good. I'm not kidding. I don't feel good. So I got to do it. I know I have to do it. Well, one of the things I wrote down during your session. Um, you know, I think Todd said this, but I know you live by it is your disciplines define you and who you are becoming in the marketplace. So you clearly are a disciplined person. So I want to thank you so much for making time for sharing, you know, your expertise, your, you know, discipline and your delightful refuge with us. Thanks Jeff. It's a real pleasure. I appreciate it. So I'm going to put links in the show notes. If anybody did want to connect with you, what would you suggest the best way for them to reach out? They can shoot me an email or call me. I'm open to both and I can provide you that information too. Awesome. I believe I got your email. So I'll put that as a link in the show notes as well. But listeners, once again, hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for tuning in. And as always, I appreciate you and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. 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? You've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before and I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchase loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it. 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