Ep# 77: Training Buyers Agents How to Refer You and Turning Listing Agents into Referral Partners

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey listeners, welcome to this week's episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. So glad you are here. If you ever need to reach me, did you know you can? Right? There's multiple ways to reach me. We've got a Facebook page, Mortgage Marketing Institute, just put that in the search terms. And we've got a private Facebook group there. So you're welcome to join additional resources, networking, best practices and good content to come through that channel there. So check us out on Facebook, Mortgage Marketing Institute.com. And hopefully by now you're subscribed to the podcast, likelihood as you are at Mortgage Marketing Radio.com. And of course, you can always reach me anytime by messaging me on Facebook. Probably really easy to do that. You can send me an email, info at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com. And I'd love to hear from you, to hear how you're doing and how I can best help. What's the one big idea you're trying to implement through the rest of 2018? Because as I'm recording this, it's June of 2018, so we're at the halfway point. Let's time to check in, where are you at on the journey. Love to know how I can help you. If you're looking to get more real estate agents, capture more agents, convert them to referral partners and accelerate that part of your business, well, check out getpowerfulpresentations.com. It's our library I've done for you turn key classes that take you through a whole process and system for quickly and easily getting in front of maximum agents in minimum time and following a proven process to convert those agents to referral partners every time. And I literally say that with 100% confidence and evidence as such, it's not hype every time. Somebody successfully follows a plan in the process. We've laid out for them and get powerful presentations. They succeed in converting real estate agents to referral partners and getting referrals. One story just from last week, gentleman, out of New York first class he had ever given for agents was nervous as all heck. At 16 agents come to his very first session, very first class. And out of that, from his very first class, he had two agents we had never worked with before, who gave him referrals on the spot. And last I talked to him, one of those is actually got an offer in on a property. Names Robert Crane out of New York and he's with movement mortgage and that's his success story. So if it can work for him, it can work for you. That's a powerful presentations.com, you want more agents and less time. That might be a solution for you. That said, let's get on to this week's special guest, very thrilled to have my special guest here. Another gentleman in the mortgage business, a professional and somebody that you know, I just have tremendous admiration and respect for for what he's achieved, but also for the high standards he holds for himself and his team. Who am I talking about? Not another than Brent Palmer Brent Palmer sales manager and team lead with home street bank up in the Portland, Oregon area. And Brent's been in the mortgage business since 2002 and he is a president's club loan officer having closed over 200 million in loan volume throughout his career. That's right, 200 million, that's a lot of loans, right? And what we unpack on this episode is a lot of different things, a couple of the things they stand out for me is how Brent is positioning himself and his team in a very competitive market with multiple offers and how he's training as buyers agents to create a more referable process for him as a mortgage loan originator. So some of you I know struggle with, you know, probably agents being weak in how they refer you and look, that's on you, Mr. Mrs. Loan Officer. It's on you to train your realtors on how to make you referable on how to, you know, tee you up so that you have a better success at converting those referrals to you, even an array competitive market. So we're going to talk about that, how he wins deals in a rate sensitive environment, how he cross sells listing agents his whole process that he executes on that. And we're going to talk about a really cool tool called Reach 150, which links to all this including Brent's information is website is in the show notes reach 150.com if you want to check them out, it is a systematic referral management tool that allows you to automate and get online reviews across your various social media platforms. But more interestingly than that perhaps is the fact that is that they have what Brent refers to and you'll hear in this episode is the follow me technology. And to be cool, if the leads you're working, the agents you're targeting, if when they got online, right, all of a sudden what they started seeing was you popping up, right? The online reviews and ratings and testimonials you have from clients, the various, you know, stories that you want to tell. If you were able to brand yourself consistently across the web as people you choose that you wanted to identify and build more credibility and trust with, build more brand awareness with, if as people are navigating the web and going about their normal business, you were just magically popping up while they're surfing the web, that would be really cool because then all of a sudden you start to buy brain cells, you start to really influence people as you know what, you're a pretty big deal, right? And so what you're going to hear is Brent kind of talking about how he uses that to influence listing agents and to get a higher conversion ratio on clients and so forth. When we talk about a lot of stuff, right, purchase business, surviving and thriving with the disruption and change in the market's coming and how do you overall build a very stable referral business with 85% of his business coming from middle estate agents, lots to learn from Mr. Brent Palmer. So hope you enjoy that episode and if you like it and yet left us a review, do so somewhere you're listening to this, whether it's the blog, whether it's iTunes, Stitcher or somewhere else in outer space. If you're leaving that, send us a light beam signal so we get 400 years from now. And I'll be much appreciated about that. And with that said, let's get into this week's show, Brent, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for following me. You bet. So I gave the list there's a little bit of a background on who you are in the intro, but why don't you give us your version, you know, how long you've been in the board's business and really what I'm more curious about is, you know, why? What is it that you enjoy about the business? You know, so I've been in the business going on 16 years now. I got in the business in 2002. The way I got in the business is I got out of college, all my education is in brush design and art and I couldn't find a job and I was working construction and kept, you know, down from job to job to job, answered an ad on monster, which I don't even know if monster is the same art, but answer an ad on monster and got my first opportunity in the industry at a subprime lender shockingly and quickly realized that that wasn't for me. And, you know, going through my wife and I's first purchase, I saw a loan off to help us through it that I just realized like it could be, it had to be better than this. Like this wasn't, you know, it was the goalposts were constantly being moved on us and the transparency was non-existent and so I talked to the realtor that was helping us which was fantastic at the time he introduced me to somebody that he had used and, you know, I went into the industry on the off side of things. So I started as a processor, processed for a few years, then quickly went to be a loan officer assistant for a couple of high-productive loan officers and, you know, stayed with them for a number of years and back, you know, helped them go start a net branch and quickly realized that if you're just honest with people, you're transparent with them and that you care about them and that you, if you act as if every loan that you're doing regardless of the circumstance was your own personal loan, that you would be able to guide them down the clearest path that's going to create the highest level of success and opportunity for them in the future, then you're doing the right thing. And so I'd go through it with that mindset today even, you know, and I'm not looking for, you know, setting them up for a refinance opportunity. I'm not looking for, you know, the, you know, I want the referral, of course, but I'm more so concerned about making sure that I give them the strongest financial stability that I would want for myself. And so, so then started originating at a, on my own, I started originating at the best time to get into the industry in 2009. And I say that in the most spacious way and came to work at home street and, you know, the leadership here and the platform has been amazing. They have fostered so much opportunity for myself that it's been incredible. And so about five years ago took over the role as the branch sales manager. I've got a team of about 16 loan officers that report through me that I helped daily. And then I've got my own originating team that I started about three years ago now that, you know, that work with me and some builders and realtor partners. And so, you know, things are, things are going great. I couldn't be happier. I'm cautiously optimistic about, you know, the future and the season that we're in. You know, it's just time to cast a wide net, keep our head down and do what others aren't so that we can prevail through it. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. So, are you then also still producing some of your own volume? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Never get too far away from the 103. And I know, like, you know, collectively in your career, you've probably surpassed now over 200 million in volume, but those that might be curious, whether it's units or volume, right, you're yourself personally, what is that looking like? Yeah. So, we're at about 100 units. Well, year to date, we're about 100 units so far and we're about 30 million years date. Last year, our team did about 220 units or so for about 75. And then the year before, we did about 198 units for just under 70. And so, you know, so, and I make up, I make up about 70% of that production individually and then my team through either, you know, referrals directly from me or builder partners that we work with, they kind of fill in the blank. So, I've got an amazing thing. Okay. Yeah, definitely. It's interesting. You've got, you know, your branch manager, as you said, 16 people and you've got your own producing team, I'd be curious to know, because I'm yours, you see it on a regular daily basis and you're up in, uh, or again, well, first question is, what's the market like up there? Is it like other markets, tight inventory, all that stuff? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, inventory is extremely tight. The market's really competitive. The wage gap to housing price is, you know, through the roof, I think I read something that we've surpassed Boston, as far as the average median income to the actual average housing price. So it's tough. You have to be creative. You have to be educational to the process so that the customer knows, you know, and understands, you know, what it means to buy a house. We're starting to see the market slow in some of the price ranges in the higher end. In that, you know, our, our kind of sweet spot here in Portland is that, you know, 350 to 550 price range, they're, you know, there's still multiple offers. There's nothing on the table and there's more buyers and our houses for sale. So you've been in this game long enough to know that, you know, different markets have different requirements or demand on us as a loan officer and I'd be curious, you know, take on, you know, I heard somebody say a few weeks ago, I'll do respect, but the last several years, you know, respectively, it's been easy. The phone has been ringing rates have been low and I don't know what your take is, but it's like, it seems like 2018, just a while back. I don't know, when it was three months, six months ago, it's like, man, somebody hit the button and the market just like shifted, right? Now we got all these, the compressions, the margin compressions, is it harder to win a deal? Oh, absolutely. I think that, and I think who ever said that, I think that they're right on point. I think that, you know, the last five years have been easy. I think that, you know, it's some degree, there's a number of officers that, you know, that could be considered order takers, a lot of big things that, you know, that are, you know, doing a lot of refinance business that was, you know, kind of a great subsidized center of a business that is now all but gone. And then you have direct to consumer competition, you know, seven years ago, Quicken wasn't even on our market share reports. And now they're in the top five in purchase business, which is, you know, which is scary. You know, Quicken, they can do purchases in a way, they only do refives. And so you have to be smarter, you have to be more agile, you have to adapt, you have to have the digital strategy behind your, you know, behind your brand, that you can compete with these. You also have to know how to put a loan together so that when you're competing against somebody that is outside your market that might have a lower rate, you have to educate that consumer to what the difference is, you know, why are they not showing the appropriate prepaid? Why are they not showing the appropriate title fees? You know, why do they not know, you know, what an early issue fee is on a, on a new construction? You have to educate them to the process so that they understand and that that's your value proposition against what those other consumer or what those other companies are offering in regards to fee and rate that you might not be able to compete with. You know, it's, it's the analogy of Walmart versus Nordstrom, right? You go and you shop at a premium brand because you want that premium service. So on a, let's say on an average transaction, then I'd like to learn a little bit more about how you advise your team, your loan officers to what does that look like to actually, you know, demonstrate that or the term I use is your visible value. So are you saying when we come into competitive situation, if, you know, the conversation is, hey, I'm getting, you know, quarter or whatever, better rate quote over here, are you, know, are you then advising your team to be, to be asking for that loan proposal or whatever so you can actually do a true comparison or how, you know, how do you then better articulate that? I guess is what I'm asking. Well, the one thing that you want to try to do in any circumstances, get to the consumer first, you know, and, and I do think that that's why some of those direct to consumer lenders have, have a strategic advantage over, you know, a smaller independent or local broker, mortgage lender, whatever the case might be is because they can get to the consumer first. Right. So if you can get to the consumer first and you can educate them to the process, you can have a meeting with them, you can sit down with them, face to face or over the telephone, you know, via a web chat, whatever the case might be, it serves you so much better for that customer retention. They're less likely to go out into the market to see what else is out there. Most of the time, somebody is only going to shop a lender when they don't necessarily understand the process. You know, there's at least in our market, right? You know, of course we're rate driven and key driven, but realistically, you know, somebody that is educated to the process and understands the way that the, you know, the experience should be is going to be less likely to, you know, to stray. Now when you're not first to the, you know, when you're not first to the party, then yeah, it's important to, you know, and the thing I communicate is let's look at Apple's app. We saw one the other day that was from an internet lender that they were offering a crazy rate that just seems so out of market that it just didn't even make sense. And so, you know, send me the, you know, cost sheet, loan estimate, whatever the case may be. And let's look at it side by side, some variables, apples will come to find out, you know, for whatever reason, the lender was disclosing a fee that wasn't even in the right place as far as that would be equivalent to a discount. And we were able to identify that, explain that to the customer, show them, you know, what their return on investment would be if they paid that versus if they took just a normal car market pricing, how that fit into what their long term short term goals are. And you know, it's not always a strategic advantage for the customer to pick their own interest rate because they don't necessarily understand how that coincides with the fact that they only plan on being in the house for five years. Well, your return on savings for that discount point is well over seven years. So it's just, again, goes back to educating the customer. And fortunately, my mentors that trained me, I mean, that was one of the biggest things that they got through to my, you know, got through to me early on is don't sell rates. Talk about their goals. Interview the customer to find out what their plan is. How long they plan on being in the house is this their first house, their second house. Look at the testing. You know, statistically, you're only going to be in a house five to seven years. So, you know, sell to that rather than just letting somebody pick something off of a, off of a menu. Yeah. And how do you then in that scenario you talked about and you wanted to demonstrate the ROI of that kind of a total cost analysis, if you will. Are there any tools you use like that to help, you know, illustrate that visually to provide people, right? That kind of long term picture into their financial situation. Absolutely. You know, before it was old school, I had an Excel spreadsheet that I used that I could, you know, plug in. I'm kind of an Excel nerd in that and that I've got a spreadsheet for everything. And then, you know, we kind of graduated to, you know, we have quick qualifier. But most recently, probably for the last 18 months or so, I've been using mortgage coach. So shout out to Dave, I don't know if he listens to your podcast, but, you know, his product has been amazing and it helped us tremendously be able to show customers side by side, you know, reinvestment strategies, tax savings, things like that. So yeah, that's, that's been a great tool that we, that I try to use in almost every circumstance, just to show the customer that there's multiple options. There's not just one, you know, line of financing that they're open to. You know, that there may be, you know, there may be an advantage going FHA if you have a 740 credit score, you know, maybe, you know, it's rare, but, you know, let's take a look at, you know, the different options and mortgage coach provide that platform. Mortgage coach also gives a great platform to compare apples to apples, what another lender might be offering and where that actual cost is long term short term. Yeah, well said, by the way, that's a great description of some of the value I have. Mortgage coach offers and I did have Dave on the podcast last year. I'll put a link to the, in the show notes, to mortgage coach. It's great software. I was using it back in the day when you used to have to download it to your laptop. Yeah, luckily, we don't, we don't have to do that anymore. So yeah, good. Yeah, long time ago. But yeah, and then really that goes to the point of in what we're talking about is, you know, how do you win in today's market and it's tougher to win and people are double-aving you today. And so now how do you build that fence around people and to your point, which is education and again, that term visible value, you've got to have a way today to demonstrate your visible value that that really, as you say, education, I remember somebody else in the interview, they said they want to make sure that they're at every single call that they're educating the buyer about one thing that they didn't know about. I think it was Ed Connerky. And that's his goal and every call, educate him on one thing financially that they didn't know about before. And that will help you secure more clients. Yeah, I mean, look, we're not seeing lives, right? We're not brain surgeons or anything like that. You know, all those some loan officers probably, probably think they're saving lives, they would, you know, we're not. And so, but what we can be is transparent and educate them, you know, we tend to on our team and what I try to coach to the loan officers that are within a branch is that, you know, be transparent with the customer, talk to them about the importance of getting credit approved. You know, we try to do, we do a tremendous amount of purchase business primarily over refinance, right? So we're competing in a multiple offer situation. I want that customer to have the best advantage going forward in that regardless of what their down payment is or whatever case may be. So we try to, in every circumstance, I think I would joke that we hold their approval letter hostage because I need to make sure that I know definitively that I can get them approved. And in most cases, we actually send those to underwriting so that we have credit underwritten approvals that gives us the advantage in a very competitive market to have short closing windows because that loan has already been processed underwritten. Now we go get an appraisal pedal before we close. And it also takes the stress out of the home buying process once they're emotionally attached to a house, right? A person gets emotionally attached to a house once they find that house. And so by doing all the heavy lifting up front, now it's just, now it's just fun, now it's exciting. And a lot of the drama is taken out of it. You know, we also communicate with the lifting agents, you know, call them, hey, that offer coming your way, wanted to let you know what the circumstances are, you know, want to tell you a little bit about the buy it. And that helps as well, you know, you know, we get beat out so though, but it definitely any little leverage that we can be in this market helps. And the biggest thing that probably helps one anything else in mortgage in general is consistency, right? If you're trying to do 10,000 things, you know, for a week at a time, you're not going to be successful. We have a very tight structured process that we run extremely consistent and yeah, I want to talk to you about that because you and I talked about that on the initial call we had. And I wrote down from those notes that you train buyers agents and you're also, you touched on cross selling agents, but can you articulate maybe more specifically kind of how you train buyers agents, whether that's, you know, training them on how to refer you or etc. Yeah, I'm very fortunate in the referral partners that I have are very loyal to us. You know, in fact, one of whom I actually came really close with and got ordained and married him in his life last summer. So it's, you know, so we really take the approach of family and, you know, the people we work with. I don't work with, you know, 20 realitives. I work with five, but those five are extremely loyal. They understand our process and we're constantly reaching out to new realers, right? We call the listing agent on every transaction. We offer, you know, our services, but we want to be more of the team that is DOE, right? I want to be selective of the partners I work with because I want to have them have a like-minded vision to what mine is. And that is above all other things, the customer, it's not about, you know, the desk friends who I can give you, it's not about the marketing or the money, the zero or any of that stuff. Because at the end of the day, that doesn't close loans, that, it just doesn't. And so it's important to me to have like-minded agents that are more concerned about the customer and more concerned about, you know, getting that transaction closed, having high conversion rates. And so when we train them, what I mean by training is, you know, we talk to them about the process. When they refer a customer over, what can they expect? They can expect that our communication, they're going to the DCC on all the emails. I let the customer know. I'm an DCD agent, so they're in the loop. I schedule weekly calls with the agents to check in with the approved buyers that we have together to give them updates, to receive updates. I'm proactive. We have a digital app that we use so that I can get letters out on the fly. I make myself available. You know, this is the shocking thing, right, as long as there's, you know, I work Monday through Friday, I work nine to three and then, you know, it's like you're lying to yourself. You don't do that. I work seven days a week and the reason I work seven days a week is because I'm trying to provide the most opportunity for my customers, my family and my referral partners by hand. And then I'm out. I want to retire. I don't want to do this until I'm 70 years old. So, you know, we provide an experience to them. You know, we let them know that when they submit an offer, we want to be copied on that offer so that we can reach out to that list of the agent correctly, proactively. And then, you know, for a few select ones, I do building champions, coaching myself, and I've been doing that for a few years. And so shout out to building champions, Michael Regans, my coach, fantastic. And so they've given us some tools that we share with our realtor partners to give them a taste of kind of what that is, you know, helping them with the simple business plan quarterly. You know, looking at what their three pillars of production would be and how they might be able to find improvements in that strategy. And so giving them value beyond, you know, marketing dollars, you know, helping them find them. Yeah. I'm also looking at my notes and something about you in terms of listing agents, cross-selling listing agents, which it just sounds so, I don't know, it sounds repetitive for me to have to keep bringing this up again, but I guess I'm consistently surprised by the amount of loan officers that don't cross-selling listing agents. But you, something about a thank you card that you send listing agents during the transactions that right? Yes. Yep. So we send out a thank you card that kind of introduces our team to the listing agents. We also implement some follow me strategy with, you know, with internet marketing so that they, you know, that they can see us on a day-to-day basis, whether they're shopping for shoes or, you know, whatever the case may be, there's some great SEO tools that you can use for that. And then, you know, we pick up the phone and then we call. The other thing that we do is every single Wednesday, like clockwork, we send out a file update. We've got six milestones within the file. And so we're proactively giving them the app. We're giving them estimated due dates on the items that we haven't achieved yet. And so, you know, and then we call at the end to say, hey, how did we do? You know, is there anything that we could have improved in our process? Is there anything that, you know, stands out that maybe the lender you're working with now doesn't do? Or is there anything that your current lender does that we're not doing, right? So we're always looking for ways to improve the process, improve the structure. And also, it goes back to service, you know, and so I would say that, you know, I track everything, right? Going back to the Excel spreadsheet from a nerd, you know, 33% of our business was past client last year and 75% of our business was purchases. So that means that we have a lot of return customers that are purchasing houses for multiple times and then, you know, a large portion of our business is customer referrals. So we take that stuff very seriously. And the listing agents are an important thing. We've added new agents to our mix that I wouldn't consider would be our A top referral partners, but, you know, got a referral from one the other day that was a listing agent and she sent a customer over to us. And so, you know, picked up the phone, called her, thanked her, sent her a card in the mail yesterday, added her to our SEO marketing. So she's going to, you know, know what we're about, where she's going to have our name on the front of her mind. And hopefully we'll get more referrals from it. Okay. A couple of things I want to unpack in there about the listing agent thing. One, I'm going to come to the SEO discussion in a moment, which I believe is reach 150, right? Correct. Okay. So before I go there, though, I wanted to maybe just real quickly understand how you identify or choose to, what is your, what is your, besides the reach 150 thing, which of course is the online kind of follow me software, we'll talk about a second, but what is your process for going after a listing agent, I guess is what I'm saying, you're on a transaction, we know we should cross the listing agent, you're servicing the heck out of them during the transaction. That's awesome. But do you have any criteria or process by which you, you go by to say, hey, that's one listing agent I want to meet with to try and partner with or what does that look like? Yeah. I mean, the first step would be do they answer their phone because you would be amazed at how many dulls, right? So you know, you've got a mental checklist, right? If I have a listing agent in front of me and I have a purchase contract and I go, okay, I got to call this person. Okay. So the first thing I call and introduce myself, did they answer their phone or did I leave a voicemail? You know, I would say probably six to one, I leave a voicemail. They don't answer their phone. And then if they do answer their phone, great. And we have a good conversation. Is that would that be considered a quality conversation where they felt that there was value that you know, did I feel at the end of that conversation, I could solicit them to say, hey, you know, we're going to go through this transaction. I've just told you the steps that the commitments that we're making to you after this transaction. I'm going to check back in with you. We don't want to be you know, we're not looking to replace anybody or be your primary lender, you'll know our process and we would love to have you refer us clients so that you can have them share in the same experience. So answering the phones the first thing, then it's just the matter of the quality conversation. And then beyond that, it's kind of judging it from, again, consistency, right? So you're doing your weekly file updates, I call the agent that closing just like you call the borrowers closing, you know, congratulating them on their transaction and then that provides another additional opportunity to judge that conversation on how it's going. And so, but the biggest thing is did they answer their phone? Or do they love these phones, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I wonder the other. Okay, so let me, let me throw this at you because I'm sure some people are thinking, you know, hey, I appreciate that brand, but really I'm a listing agent. How do you respond to that one? So then that's fine. So as a listing agent, I totally understand that. You know, I think that there's opportunity that if you have a transaction that you feel is going sideways, share, share our experience with that buyer's agent to, hey, maybe these guys can come in and they can help you out with the deal. In fact, the better part of my afternoon this morning is taking one from a large, a large bank and taking that deal over and it's 100% because it's actually coming from the listing agent. Um, listing agent, Paul Brent, see if he can, see if him and his team can help. I called the loan officer out of respect, so, hey, what's going on with this stuff? And, you know, through that conversation, realize, hey, I can help. And so, you know, it's more so if they're exclusively a listing agent, I would say don't let that discourage you. I think that that creates opportunity and again, in the season that we're going into, you know, passing that wider net as I've been bold and, you know, turn those, you know, turn those challenges into opportunity where, you know, like I said, you might not get a referral and you might not get a referral for a couple years, but if you state consistent, the activities that your system presents, those will eventually pay off. And so, you know, yeah, no, that's good. And it's not going to work every time, but, but again, yeah, I think, you know, you're talking about a process, right? And so most, most people are kind of, you know, winging it, gunshot, all this kind of goes random, no process, but you're, you're following a very, actually, executable consistent process every time. So it scales. So your team can follow it and, yeah, you're not going to have about a thousand, but I mean, if you get one out of three listing agents who wind up sending you, you know, a deal or two a month, well, hey, that multiplies over time, you know, absolutely. Do you automatically, aside from 150, reach one, fit too much that we'll get to next? But do you add any listing agents to any kind of outbound drip campaign or anything you might have? Yeah, we, we do add the listing agents to our CRM, you know, we try to, we try to keep it super soft. I'm not trying to spam them. I don't want to, you know, I don't want them to have to opt out, but I do want to stay in front of them. So they probably get emails twice a year on the listing agent side of things. So it's very soft, you know, as far as direct contact during the transaction, though, we're, you know, we're adding them like we'll talk about in a minute with the follow me, which is fairly new to us. And so, you know, but we've seen good success with it. I've had agents actually send us screenshots of like, hey, this came up. But we don't try to spam them as much as they want or as they, you know, we don't try to spam them as much as others. And we try to keep our communication, how would you say it? We try to keep it light and we try to keep it real. We're not trying to represent it, represent ourselves as something or not. Just be authentic. You know, yes, authentic. There we go. My brain wasn't working. Yeah, we try to keep it authentic and real and, and, you know, we want to help you. But if you've got somebody totally understand it and, you know, our paths will cross at some point. I'm sure of it. Yeah. No doubt, no doubt. Okay, cool. You know, when you told me about this, I was like, well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Stop, stop, stop. I need to know more. So I got on their website and did some digging and, um, man, this is pretty impressive. Um, give us, you know, us listeners, just a simple loan officer, uh, overview of what it is and how you use it to write, attract real real referral partners, et cetera. Yeah. So reach 150 that's core is a referral part of a referral or, or review platform similar to Zillow, Yale, Facebook, whatever the case may be. However, it, it allows you to, um, not necessarily scrub that review, but have access to that review prior to it going, um, to the masses. So not every transaction is perfect. And so if a customer has feedback that you maybe can have a coaching opportunity on, it gives you the opportunity to have that versus, you know, that dreaded one star on Yale. Um, and so it also, their company reach 150, uh, does a ton of SEO and, uh, search engine, uh, optimization. So when somebody is searching for validation to a loan officer, you know, and I strongly believe that, uh, the millennial customer base doesn't get referrals the same way as, you know, previous generations that they are doing research prior to even asking their friends necessarily about a home buying experience. And so, you know, it helps put you in front, um, and optimizes where you come up in organic searches. Um, the other thing that we just recently kind of explored on this, uh, is the follow me technology that reach 150 offers in that you can, if you have a customer, whether it's a pre-qualified buyer, uh, you have a realtor that you're trying to court, uh, or do business with, um, or you have a targeted area that you just want to market to. You can use their tools, um, to either enter an email that will ping back to an IP address that will find them, uh, and then put, uh, just organic, uh, advertisements, whether it's recommendations or postings or pictures or whatever the case will be, uh, to those targeted demographics, whether it's an individual or an area or a city that you're looking at. So it's been pretty cool. And again, I have to, you know, none of these things that I do, Jeff, or not, like some kind of like mind blowing original thought, you know, you, everything in this industry has been done before and we just borrow from, you know, other people make it systematic and make it consistent and, you know, and see if it pays off for us. So, um, and, and so far it's been good and, and the feedback that we've gotten, um, is great because obviously we don't go out there and say, hey, by the way, we're going to put your email into a follow me technology and you're going to see random reviews pop up when you're on Amazon. Um, but we've gotten screenshots that saying, hey, you know, there's the Palmer team and, uh, and that's been pretty cool. So you can see from that that the process works. Yeah, that's really cool. So if I understand you correctly, then that follow me technology is technically, it's really a targeted advertisement. Um, and what is that, is that showing reviews, then, is that what it shows? You can say, yeah, we have it show reviews, um, or recommendations, you know, client testimonials, um, but you can also create ads as a realtor. I don't know if, you know, they could, uh, if they have an open house in a, in a targeted area, whether it's Portland or, or in whatever market, uh, they can actually target specific zip down the zip codes, I believe, uh, and, and create advertisement that way. So there's a few different things that they do. The thing I love about it is, it's super affordable for the, for the targeting that it allows. It, it's one of the most affordable ones that I've seen. Yeah. That's why I was why when you told me about it, I was like, we got to talk about this. So, uh, links in the show notes for it, but it's reach 150, that's the number 150 reach 150.com and go there checking out, they're going to demo video, all that stuff. I'm just going to dive it into it myself, uh, we'll probably have them on the podcast at some future date because we have another folks similar to them on, um, very, very cool though. I like that. I mean, talk about, like you said, in today's world, with, with social proof and media online, plus there's a social media integration that makes it easy. Yeah. It's funny. You brought this up because I, I teach a brand new class for realtors and I talk about online reviews and I'm just reading here. It's like, you know, one of the challenges is getting people actually give you a review and then how do you get that across your sites and reach 150 looks like they make that easier for you to do. Yeah. And reach 150, you know, the one thing with them, not to make this reach 150, but they are one of the few platforms where, uh, the customer doesn't have to sign up for anything, right? Right. Yeah. They have to face those accounts. They'll have to, they'll account, you'll have to have a Yelp account and then Yelp, even if you do get reviews, half of them, they kick out, um, so, you know, so it, it works really well. It's very, very simple. We have seen the highest amount of reviews, um, from customers from reach 150. We do just to be perfectly clear though. We try to, um, send people to multiple different platforms with, uh, within our, within our sphere. So we, you know, are constantly rotating between Yelp Facebook and Zillow, um, just because when we first got reach 150, I was skeptical at first because I was like, okay, you know, here's a, you know, I'm looking at my own mindset is, you know, I'm super skeptical of, you know, this site that I haven't heard of, you know, then I knew that they would allow me to scrub those recommendations or reviews. So we still try to keep it organic because most customers want to see your brand or your product reviewed through multiple platforms to give them validation, um, that you're the real deal. Right. Right. Right. Um, absolutely. Okay. Cool. So like we said, link in the show notes reach 150.com. It's not a commercial, but hey, we're all about bringing you valuable resources that can help you. Um, so before we wrap up, you, um, open up what, uh, talking about, you know, if you can get to the customer first, obviously, that's a win. And what that may be curious about is if there's anything you're doing to get to the customer first, for example, you know, if you're, you're doing things on social media in a strong way, video content, or is you getting to the customer first largely through that real to referral channel, um, if there's anything you wanted to comment on getting to the customer first. Yeah. Getting to the customer first, um, we do a lot of social media. Um, we do targeting, uh, advertisement through social media. I try to control my lead gen, um, opportunities through things that are just to me and my team. Um, so I try not to participate in co-branding or co-marketing, um, one because, you know, that's a sticky subject right now. Two is that it's super expensive, um, so, you know, so what can I control, right? I can control my content through Facebook. I can control, you know, trying to be involved in my customer's lives, um, and not spamming them, but keeping them aware of what I do, um, you know, and, and so we have a Facebook page, um, for Paul and my team, and then I have my own individual product page. I try to, at all possible, if I've got a great experience and I connect with a customer, I get them, um, connected socially, uh, and then other than that, you know, we use our referral partners quite a bit. You know, we work with a lot of builders. We work with, um, a couple really good, uh, realtor firms, uh, really one here in Portland that, uh, that do lead gen and they believe in our process and they, you know, believe in our conversion rates. And so we get, you know, a lot of customers that way. Um, and then, uh, we don't have any, like, kind of crazy special sauce, but, you know, we, uh, we definitely stand for them. Well, you're executing well, and that's really the key. A lot of people hear ideas and, you know, they go on the back burner and don't turn anything about it. Um, I guess real quickly on the Facebook thing, um, I'm looking at your, your business page, you got 27 reviews, uh, mostly five stars. That's awesome. Uh, how do you balance between business and personal page? Are you putting some business related stuff on your personal page? Yeah, I definitely put, uh, I put my, I share everything back to my personal page. So if we do post something on our business page, I share back, um, to, uh, my personal, um, if there's something that is unique or something I feel is, uh, urgent to, you know, to my sphere of influence, I'll put it just on my personal, um, you know, I tend to see, uh, higher analytic view, if I, if I share back, we also have our team members, you know, we encourage them to share through, but we try to, uh, originate all of the activity through our Facebook page. Um, I had a Facebook manager for several years that helped create content, whether it advertising or whatever. I've just recently taken that back myself and then, um, home street has helped me tremendously with our, um, internal marketing department, uh, start generating some boosted posts and marketing. I encourage my realtors, but if they've got a listing, send me the Zoolink and I'll share it and, you know, help them or if they've got to come in soon, you know, so again, that goes back to the part of the training of working with that agent and, and, you know, being a partner in their business. Right, right. And yeah, you'll post the listings or whatever on behalf of agents, right? Yeah. By the way, I got to give you a shout out, um, I'm on your business page right here, which is if you're on Facebook, it is, uh, I believe it's facebook.com forward slash Brent Palmer does loans, um, is the actual URL. Yeah. You can't change. I didn't realize that you can't change that after you create it. So, hey, man, you can work more straight forward than that. Right. Well, that's true. I mean, that's the root of it. That's what we do. We do loans. Yeah. But you can also search with the Palmer team mortgage. But you put something on there on the business page, which is, uh, you guys are doing, uh, or did. This was Wednesday. He did a barbecue, a block party. Why it's park. What is that? Yeah. Home development. Kind of new development. Yeah. So that's one of our builders that we work with and real their offices. So again, you know, um, they were marketing that. Uh, it was in partnership with Northwest National Gas that. That helps a lot of the builders out here. And, um, it was in a established subdivision. And, and so, you know, they, they gave away a barbecue. So we wanted to kind of get that word out there, share that and, uh, and boost that post as much as possible. And actually, we had a great turnout. Um, it was kind of nice to have a lot of the neighbors that we had done previous loans. My partner Beverly, uh, she does a ton of new construction. And, uh, and so, you know, we got to see a lot of the clients that, uh, that we had worked with in the past. And so it was, uh, it was the fun event. That's awesome. And, and I got to give you a one quick little shout out and plug there. You on that, um, little barbecue thing that you're hosting. Uh, this is an idea somebody gave me years ago. And so for those listening, I always want to pay it forward with this idea. You, we, we called it a happy hour head shot. And you were doing something similar. Uh, you're giving also a way professional free head shots. I assume for realtors. Yeah. Yes. Well, I can't take full credit for that. That was not part of our, uh, that was the, uh, that was hardcore. It's the real, the real, the real, the real, the office that was doing that. But yeah, that was their idea. That was a, and they actually got a lot of real, there's some through that, that needed head shots. So, yeah. A lot of them. Yeah. Got more. Yeah. And I got a lot of traction to, uh, to the event and, uh, you know, and, and Chris did networking opportunities. So yeah, they, they had good success with that. Yeah. So anybody wants an idea right now and what you can do in the next couple of weeks to get a bunch of realtors out, host a happy hour head shot, hire professional photographer, spend 500 bucks or whatever. Get a, get a co-sponsor title, let's go. Whatever, right? And host a happy hour head shot, man, after some drinks and get your head shot. Yeah. You're going to get agents out. Trust me. Very cool. And of course, the last thing is, is you interject personality into your Facebook page, which is awesome. I love the reference you got there to from, uh, Ron Burgundy. Uh, that's really great. Awesome. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Now people have to go to your page to see it at the Palmer team mortgage on Facebook. So that is awesome. I appreciate that. You have shared a lot of pearls of wisdom today. And as I said, everything we talked about will be in the show notes, links to your pages, all that fun stuff. So, um, I guess the last question I would have. Yeah, good. Yeah. The only thing I was going to add is I'm an open book. So if there's long officers out there, they're like, gosh, anything he said sounds, sounds great. Or, you know, this guy is just full of BS. Whatever it is, you know, regardless of the market, reach out to me. Share whatever I have, whether it's our checklist or, you know, our systems. Um, you know, I feel like there's enough business out there for enough great loan officers. And anything that we can do to, you know, create our own market share. I'm happy to help in. And, uh, you know, and, and so I'm, I'm an open book and total abundant mindset that. You know, I just want to see great loan officers succeed. And so, you know, please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly. Um, if I'm assuming that my stuff will be in there in your, in your podcast. So I encourage people to, you know, to do that if they're interested in the other things that we talked about. Yeah, absolutely. We appreciate that very much. I guess while we're at it, if somebody don't, we don't want to email you. I'll, I'll put the Facebook page in there like I said in your website. But how about an email if you want people to reach out? Yeah, so Brent. Palmer at home street.com. And, uh, yeah, you can feel free email me. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for making time. I know you're busy. You got a lot of stuff to get back to. And just appreciate your being sharing with the community. Appreciate it. All right, Jeff. I appreciate your time as well. Yeah, my pleasure. And for you listeners, hope you enjoyed this episode. As always, feel free to leave us a review anywhere you're listening to this. And we appreciate you. So we'll see 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? 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