Ep #81: Tim Braheem on Going from Conversion to Connection

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. Mortgage Marketing Radio Brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimberg, your humble host for this session of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Hope you are well. And by saying that, I mean that. It's not too often I take time to hopefully connect with you and allow you to understand how much I appreciate you, the listener of the audience. You know, I just checked statistics my podcast statistics the other day and it showed me that we are averaging over 7,600 downloads a month right now and we've surpassed well over 50,000 total lifetime downloads. And all I can say is wow, I appreciate that. Thank you. This started as a labor of love. This started as a passion project as a way to bring ideas and inspiration and a road map and help a helping hand for those of us fellow mortgage loan originators out in the streets doing our best to hopefully slugging it out right to try and build a business around our life that we can truly enjoy. And so I just want to take a moment to acknowledge you and I'm thankful for that and grateful for you and perhaps I'm feeling a little bit extra connected to that because of my guest on this session of Mortgage Marketing Radio. It's hard to do an intro for this person. I'll have to say, so let's just get right into it. Shawi, my friend and mentor, especially guest Tim Brahim, many of you probably know of Tim. We're now at the various events and conferences, speaking and training and coaching, his new company, Performance Experts, which you'll hear a little bit about. But look, Tim Brahim is here as one of my favorite people, not just in the mortgage industry, but I think one of my favorite people just overall that I've had the, I guess the privilege of knowing on some level, you ever been around somebody, whether it's even directly in person or just by hearing them or seeing them somewhere and they make you feel better. They make you understand the truth about what's real. Well, I'm sorry if it sounds cheesy or whatever, but that's that's how I feel whenever I get a chance to see, listen here, speak with Tim Brahim because Tim Brahim for me is all about authenticity. And if you're looking for the roadmap in your business to have an authentic, be true to yourself business, one that you enjoy, one that's fun, one that you look forward to going to every day, one in which you get to interact with and engage and build really meaningful relationships and partnerships with both real estate agents and anybody else you would want to build those relationships with financial planners, CPAs, life insurance agents. I tell you, that's one of the key things that stands out for me whenever I have a chance to talk to Tim and listen to Tim is the ability to actually have that kind of business and get there. I mean, listen, that all sounds well and good, but don't get me wrong, Tim is also a wildly successful entrepreneur and business professional. I mean, the quick background around Tim because I know we've got some folks listening that may not be familiar with Tim because he got in the mortgage business in 1995 and some of you all were just wet behind the years then, right? So in 1995, after a couple of years as an originator, he decided to launch his own company, first-rate financial up in Ventura County, California, which quickly became one of the top mortgage brokerage companies in the industry in terms of annual production. From 1997 to 2004, Tim was consistently ranked among the top 50 loan officers in the country and in 2004, at his peak year in terms of units and volume, doing an astounding 676 loans for over 236 million in volume. That at the time ranked him number 26 in the US out of 400,000 loan officers. And because of Tim's achievements for production as a mortgage originator, mortgage originator magazine inducted him into their Hall of Fame. About only seven loan officers have been ever inducted into the Hall of Fame, so that's a pretty significant accomplishment. So alone, the fact of doing 676 loans, and then to follow Tim's career out, he became the co-founder of Loan Toolbox, which was in its day one of the greatest online resources for training, tools, support, coaching to help us all get better and become more effective, more profitable mortgage originators. It had about 11,000 members and was ranked in the Inc. 500 list as one of the fastest growing companies in the country. I mean, the resume goes on, right? So nowadays, Tim is the CEO and founder of Performance Experts. He's the head coach over there and Tim is, once again, impacting lives, shaping people's futures, helping people to really live a life that they thought perhaps once was impossible. Live a life of intentionality and designing a life, as I said, that you really enjoy that has significance and impact in your family life, your personal life, but in your business as well. And man, it just feels good to be in that place. And Tim Bredeem is one of those few people that can help you get there. So the inspiration for having Tim on today was his presentation at the mortgage mastermind summit in Vegas, where he talked about focusing on connection versus conversion. And that's one of the themes we talk about here, but we talk about many, many other things as well, that is all related to, I think, if you're looking for that road map, the lamp light at your feet, that guide you along the way for how do you truly have a quote successful mortgage origination business, not just a business, but a career. And one that is obviously far beyond just transactional, but as I keep referring to one that dammit you love, right? And you have a good time doing, and you look forward to. And to this podcast, more than once, take notes, really listen to where Tim's coming from, because it's a place that not most people come from when when you usually hear people describing, you know, how to become a successful mortgage originator. So I am thrilled to bring Tim here, obviously, as you can tell, and I'm thrilled to hear your feedback on today's episode, obviously reach out and connect to Tim. His website links will be in the show notes, but if you want to learn more about Tim, you can go to performance-experts.com, he's actually got a new referral partner success system that you'll hear about on today's episode, and you can find that over on his website over there, which is a comprehensive online training system that teaches you Tim's step-by-step proven strategies to allow you to track real estate agents, financial planners, CPAs, etc. And so that's a really awesome system of deep dive with all kinds of videos and training and exercises and, you know, scripts and key points and stuff, so if you're inspired, check that out. Once again, the link will be in the show notes, performance-experts.com. That said, without further ado, please welcome my special guest, Tim Braheem. Let's get into this week's show. Hey Tim, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me, Jeff, nice to be with you. It is nice to have you, I was going to say, finally, you wouldn't know that, but, you know, you've been on my radar for some time to be on the podcast, so I'm very grateful for it. And I know my listeners will be as well. And to kind of set up our conversation, like you and I talked to you the other day, in having witness thing you speak at Mastermind again for, I don't know, probably the third year in a row. And as I had said then, I'll say it now, always a highlight to hear you speak, because I think one of the things that stands out differently about you, well, I mean, one is that you're different, but, you know, and I think what I mean by that is your approach is different. Your thinking is different, and I don't know if you see that, not just, you know, I don't want to say specifically for Mastermind, but in the conversations you see happening out there in the mortgage space, there's a lot of people focused on, you know, transaction and conversion, and they seem to be very disorganized and not intentional about how they're building their business and going about their day. And to set you up on this, you know, that's what I see that you bring to the table differently, is that you are very clear and intentional and structured and actually have a plan. But you don't overlook the fact that we still have a job to do, and that is to insulate somebody, make an impact in somebody through being a partnership or closing alone, and then really building relationships. So, wanted to set that up and ask you, was it always like that for you? Yeah, thanks for that. You said a lot, and I have a lot to say in response, so, you know, mind, I'll go, I mean, because you just bring up so many important points in my mind, so thanks for a great introductory question. I do realize that I'm unusual, I guess, I mean, I'm not the typical teacher in the mortgage space just because I don't believe that it's just all about strategy and tactics. And some of it became apparent to me early in my career through errors and, you know, unsuccessful experiences that then were adjusted to in my plan and subsequently resulted in success. And then some of it has come, you know, post mortgage career as a coach and diving into my own interpersonal journey, and, you know, my own personal growth, and then looking at what I'm going through as a human being and going, ah, that's why this didn't work when I was a long officer, or, oh, wow, okay, I kind of fell into that, it worked because of this, but I didn't really realize it was working because of this. So, to give you an example, I guess, you know, is it about 1995 or something, you know, I had a pretty good income year for the first time in my career, I was like 28, 29 years old and, you know, made 400 grand or something and was, you know, I had been trying to get business from real estate agents and using all of the typical strategies we'll call it to get business from that, you know, cooperatively marketing with them and trying to, you know, conduct the, you know, going on that first appointment and clearly displaying my unique selling proposition and trying to get them to commit to being a partner of mine in these types of things. And I was running up against a lot of resistance and roadblocks and, and, and more importantly, it just didn't feel good, you know, like I'd leave and I was young and I had a chip on my shoulder and I'd be like, you know, that SOB, you know, like I make twice as much money than he does or, you know, and, and, and they're, and they're making me, you know, kiss their rear end and, like, and it just, none of it felt good. So I kind of went into a rebellion phase where for about three years I sought to prove that I didn't need realtors. So this was like 96, 97, 98, I really didn't pursue any and I got, you know, heavily into managing my database and became incredibly proficient at that. And I think I was doing that as well as anybody I knew at the time and was asked to speak on that early in my career, like from the Todd Duncan events. And then when I realized, because after 98, after the re-five boom ended 98, I mean, I got, I got locked right in the face, like I, I mean, I funded 311 loans in 98 and in June of 99, I was looking at funding three, you know, I mean, that's a huge drop, you know, and I was pretty freaked out. And I realized, I didn't have an insulated myself fully in the way that I wanted to, but I need to figure out a different way to go about this job because the way that I was going about it earlier in my career just, it didn't feel good. Like, I mean, I was, I was in some really dysfunctional relationships. And then I got beat up really, really good by some realtors that were very advantageous and that worked me hard and took advantage of me. So I realized that a paradigm shift needed to happen for me, which was I needed to stop chasing and start interviewing them for the opportunity to work with me. And not in a cocky way, but in a way to wear my energy when I would go into the appointment and need it to shift, because if I'm going into it with a bunch of insecurities and trying to close them and being strategic, they're going to have their guard up and I'm never going to get through to them. I mean, because that's what everybody else is doing, and I wanted to be unique, I wanted to be different. So I started to really practice kind of a, it was a strategy, but I, and I didn't really realize why it worked until more recently, but the uniqueness of my approach was to not really talk about me, which is just to go in and find out what they needed and to spend the first couple of times meeting with the person, just asking a lot of intelligent questions, really being a good listener and really understanding how I could serve them. And then coming back strategically with, here are the things that I could do for you based upon what I heard you say. And it really shifted a lot, because what ended up happening was I was able to subsequently vet out a lot of relationships that never took shape and I'm glad they didn't take shape because they weren't with my kind of people, my tribe of people, like there's only so many people out there that really are meant to, you know, to be worked with for our unique personalities. We're all different. And that was a part of the process was to be able to like purge out early, like the people that wouldn't be a good fit for me. It was more of a slow growth, so it wasn't like adding a realtor every week, you know, is adding like a realtor every three months as a result of this new way of doing things, but most importantly, I was adding people that I really loved hanging out with. And it felt so much more supportive of me and healthy and it got to the point where really everybody that I worked with as referral partners were my friends. Now that I looked back on it and what I spoke about in Vegas and truth be told like what I spoke on Vegas for anybody who was at that event, what I spoke about connection and the importance of connection and how that's what life is about and that's what gives meaning to our lives and that it's a very much a part of how we should be doing our business. I'm speaking as I always do Jeff, like one of it is like a little secret that I don't really tell anybody, but you know, I'm not the authority on the things that I speak about half the time. I'm actually speaking about things that I'm working really hard on right now in my life. So what I'm speaking on connection and how much it brings meaning to life, I'm really telling the audience what I'm aware of that I'm working on and that I need more of in my life. So the last 10 years from here, so there's been a journey of me letting my armor down, letting my guard down, being more vulnerable, being more real, allowing myself to be seen, not being in my head and being so strategic in my life and connecting with people on a deeper level. So like my relationship with my kids is way better than it ever has been, my relationship with my parents is way better than it ever has been and I have way more friends than I've ever had and all I know is I'm a happier person because I'm not so lonely. Like I mean, I have like some meaningful relationships in my life and then when I look back on it and then closing, I go, shit, that's what I was doing. Can I say shit? Your podcast by the way, if I turn this into the Howard Stern show, but I look, you could edit that out. But when I look back on it, I go, that's why it worked with realtors and that's why it worked with account financial planners. I didn't really realize what I was doing, but by not putting the full court press on them, by really taking an interest in who they were to evaluate whether they were somebody I wanted to work with, by really gaining some understanding of where they needed help and truly and honestly evaluating, am I the guy to help them? Just like, if your gig is, yeah, you can help me by paying for half my Zillow ads, I'm not your guy. I mean, that's not wrong for other people, but it's not right for me. So why not know that now and know that that's what's important to that person. I can't meet their needs. I'm going to pass, and I'm going to find connections with people that I truly enjoy working with. And my job is fun, and I'm going to be more successful because I'm going to be really supporting people that can then reward me for what I'm giving to them. So hopefully that kind of ties all that together, the presentation in my past. Yeah, it does. Very, very well. Thank you. And there's a lot you shared in there as well. Let me try and isolate a couple of things in there. In essence, are you saying then you're showing up to these, let's just take the example of the real term meetings. You're showing up with no agenda, per se, kind of a clean slate, and just want to show up and connect with this person and learn more and just find out who they are as a human being. Thank you. That's a great question. The agenda, there is an agenda, and in the agenda, or what we might want to refer to as intention. I mean, it's one and the same, I think. The intention is to see how it feels. Does this person feel like a good fit for me to work with? Do we have stuff in common? Can I really help them? Like that's the intention behind it. That's the biggest thing that I would want to impart upon anybody listening to this. So check this out. So the normal scenario in a nutshell is I'm strategically trying to figure out how to get them to give me a deal. Most originators, that's what they're going into it. If you look at, you peel the layers of the onion back, you get to the core. The intention behind it is a strategy to get them to give us a chance. So first of all, understand, for those of you that are listening that have that intention, that's really heavy. I mean, meaning like, you've got a lot of pressure on yourself now. You're putting a lot of stress on this appointment, and they feel it. So remember, we're all connected. I mean, everybody want to, I don't mean to get overly technical, but like science is proven that there's a connectedness amongst all of us, there's nothing to be. And there's a vibration. Changing energy. Wow. When they walk in and meet somebody. For sure. Yeah. So put yourself in their shoes. You're on the other end of it, right? And you've had this same appointment about 50 times where the person's going to come in over coffee and they're going to guns of blazing can try to convince you. Of course, you're going to put your guard up, right? I mean, you're not going to just sit there and be sold and have somebody try to convince you to give them a try. You're going to be defensive. And there's a ton of pressure on you because you have an intention to leave there with some kind of an agreement. And therefore, your energy is a little bit tough for them to feel and manage because you've got some intensity in you. I mean, that's kind of what's happening on an energy level and an exchange of connection level. It's the opposite, which is, I'm here to get to know this person. I'm here to find out if they feel like they're a good fit for me. I'm here to see how I can help them. Like how can I serve them? Like, when you really think about it, it's like, it's pretty offensive the way that I used to go about it. Like I used to go about it early in my career of, it was very selfish to like, I'm going to go on there and say all the right things to you to try to get you to give me a deal that will pay me three grand. That's an interesting message that I was sending to the other party versus I have no intention of convincing you or of anything, selling you on anything or even talking about myself for the first couple of appointments. My intention is only find out where you need help and determine if I can be the person that helps you. And after I've helped you, then maybe we could talk about doing some business together because the law of reciprocity kicks in and people like to give back to somebody who's given value to them. And it just really, it most importantly, Jeff, I think of anything that it did, was it changed my energy when I'd go have a cup of coffee or lunch with a realtor for the first or second time. So I wasn't going in with an expectation of getting something and therefore I was going in more myself, more relaxed, more at ease, more friendly, more curious. I was embodying all these qualities that we all possess in our personality that actually have people put their guard down and feel safe and then a foundation can be created for a connection. I mean, pardon the metaphor, the crudeness of the metaphor, but it would be like going on a first date and the other person feeling like you were saying all the right things to try to get them to sleep with you tonight. You know, like you'd be like, whoa, you're moving too fast here buddy and slow down and you'd be defensive, right? If they felt the opposite, which is this person is a nice person and they just want to get to know me and they're truly curious and interested in me, now you're going to feel more safe. You're going to put your guard down and now we can connect and we can see how that feels. And guess what? Those are the relationships that last forever because they have an actual foundation behind them. Like I mentioned, Greg King is very, who I coach, who's just a spectacular human being and I mean, it's no secret life, the successful amount you meet and he's just such a great person and they're like, he's got 16 very loyal realtors that give him 100% of their business and they fight for him, you know, he did 361 deals last year. And when I ask Greg, hey, you know, can you share with the group, you know, with the people in the L360 family, what you do, he's like, I don't really think I do anything special because he doesn't even realize that the uniqueness of him is that he doesn't sell himself. He doesn't try to convince anybody to work with him. He truly just gets to know them and then tries to help them and the rest just takes care of itself. And then he's got this army of people who love him because he cared about them first. So that's kind of the process that I'm offering up is an alternative process to what a lot of people do. Yeah, do you think that anybody can make the pivot to that style of engagement or is there some pre-work they might need to do or something? That's a great question. So one thing about me is that I don't necessarily always say things everybody likes to hear about it. But I want to be honest. I think so too. It's truth and mortgage marketing. So go at it. Good. Good. Well, because here's the thing. Some people don't have a likability factor. I mean, we've met those people and that's just their stuff. It doesn't make them a bad person. It doesn't mean that they're helpless or that they, you know, that they're not, that they're not worthy of being in the job or anything like that. It's just that some people have their stuff that they're bringing to the table, whatever it is, their life experiences that they're bringing to the table. They're not particularly welcoming. So can anybody make the pivot? Probably not everybody. But I do think that everybody can make an attempt. I mean, so let's, let's look at it like this. Let's remove all of the conjecture from the equation. Let's just talk about relationships that we have in our lives. All the meaningful relationships, your closest friend's job, they didn't happen by some strategy. Right? Like you didn't go into that first beer that you had with your buddy, you know, 15 years ago going, all right, how am I going to get this guy to like me? Right? I mean, it just happened organically. You showed up as you, they showed up with them, and it was a good fit. All I'm offering is that's fully available to all of us in business. And guess what? When it happens, business gets fun because then you're working with people that you really dig, you know, and that's why it's important to find out like I'm not bullshitting when I say like truly find out who they are and whether or not they're good fit for you. If they, you know, don't like sports and you're an avid sports fan, that doesn't mean that you don't want to work with them. It means that's just one thing you don't have as a connection point. I mean, we have to find some things that are common, you know, and then all of a sudden we, because people take care of people that they like, you know, when I talked to loan officers, I was talking to somebody earlier today, actually, who I'm interviewing for our coaching program, you know, one of the things that he was sharing to me is there's such in his opinion, there's such a lack of loyalty among realtors right now, like, you know, not a rumor loyal, the big blanket statement, it's like, well, I don't know if I believe that. Like, I mean, I think there are a lot of loyal people out there. I used to think like that. I used to think that they all realtors are, you know, you're as good as your last deal. And I realized, no, that's, that's my immaturity. Have I taken the time to let my guard down and take my sales hat off and connect with them? And if I take my time to find some people that are my tribe, you know, that are the my kind of people, and it may take a little bit more time, you might have to sift through twice as many realtors to find the right five or six, but I'll tell you this, if you have the right five or six, it's better than the wrong 15. Good points. You know, because the right five or six are going to give you more deals, they're going to fight for you, they're going to respect you, they're not going to call you at eight o'clock at night, they're going to, they're going to be fun to work with, you know, and, and they're going to probably account for as many deals as the wrong 10 to 15 who are going to, you know, give out three cards or refer every third deal to you. And then they're not going to work well within your system. It's just not even fun at that point. Yeah, you said a key phrase there a couple of times, you know, that they're going to fight for you. And, you know, especially in this market, right, the, the pressure to perform the, the competitiveness of more people chasing agents, that's I think becoming even more important, you know, technology, all these other companies kind of creeping in. It's like, how do I win that business? How do I, you know, become more referable? I think with, you know, one takeaway that I just want to highlight, I think everybody's hearing it is, yeah, it's the relationships, you know, it's the foundation, it's the connection of that. It's the level of rapport, trust, likeability that's going to allow you to win that larger share of the business. But also, I love what you said, just to reiterate, it's, you know, the agent's going to fight for you. And, you know, I think that's what you want in a transaction. Yeah. I mean, it was very amazing because I mean, I used to have realtors that give out three business cards and one of them was mine and they did that dance and I would say, hey, you know, don't give out mine at all then if you're not going to just get about to give out just mine. You know, I would get all of the cards every day and try to everything, you know? And then, like, when I tried this new approach, everything shifted. It was like, it wasn't, and never even had to deal with that anymore. I mean, it was I, I, I just was working with a bunch of friends who wasn't, all I needed to do was just maintain the friendship. I mean, just go out and play around a golf and go out and have dinner with, you know, my wife and their, their husband or their wife and every once in a while and just hang out and be thoughtful and write them a handwritten note every once in a while, let them know how much I appreciate them and I never had the two business cards thing anymore, three business cards thing. I mean, it was loyal because, because it was real. I guess that's really what it is. Now they think about it. It was loyal because it was real, you know, like it was a real relationship versus something that was transactionally obtained with strategy, which is very different. Okay. That's, I love that. That's a great setup in terms of, you know, the philosophy, if you will, and the mindset and the approach in terms of changing how you look at building relationships with realtors. And I know, so I've got this other voice in my head that's chirping now saying, okay, that's it. And Jeff, Tim, I buy into it. I like it. What I'm curious about is if you did or recommend doing any kind of, you know, advanced recon work, if you will, right, to identify the right agents in the local market. Do you know what I mean? Sure. Yeah. For sure. First of all, I don't want to compliment you. I mean, this is the first time I've ever been interviewed by you. But you're a really easy person to have this kind of a conversation with and your questions are organic and fluid. And it's getting me stimulated. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for being a great interviewer. And I don't say that lightly at all. So yeah, I think that that's the advantage that the law and originator of today has versus my generation, right? Like you have access to so much more information that you can be doing your homework in advance. And I don't think, I think for some reason that I can't quite figure out a lot of law and originators want to like hide the fact that they did recon. I mean, I don't think you hide it. I think you own it. I mean, I think that you own it because of flattering. And I think you don't you position it like, you know, and I'm sitting down with a real estate agent. The first thing I'm going to say is, hey, I hope you don't mind that I did a little bit of homework and kind of checked out your Facebook page and, you know, I noticed that you like hiking, you know, and before we even talk about anything else, I just, I love hiking too. Like where are some of your favorite places to go for a hike? Start the conversation off there. You want to lower somebody's guard. I mean, they're, they're thinking, you're coming into the meeting and the first thing you're going to start pitching is your unique selling proposition. And we're going to close in 15 days and I'll make you guys a cash buyer and we're going to make you look good. You're going to get referrals. They've heard all that. Okay. So let's start off with a common denominator among the two of us. And guess what? If it never goes past that, it's okay. They're going to give you the second appointment because they're going to enjoy the first appointment. Your goal should be for the first appointment to be enjoyable for them. That's how you get the second appointment. The problem is, is the first appointment generally isn't that enjoyable because it's all about you. You're telling them about you. It's not about them. There's no care that's being put into it. And then they're like, oh, that felt greasy and I don't want to get together again versus, what if you just made it about them? I know that you had two kids that go to this school. My kids graduated from that school. How do you like it? What teachers do they have? Oh, my daughter had the same teachers. You're so cool. You know, whatever. You know, and for, you know what, half hours gone by and they don't really want it to end because it's been fun and refreshing for a change. And this is where I was talking to Danny Harani the other day. He's going to be in our next L360 group and those are listening that know him and he's such a bright guy. I mean, really honored to be working with him. And we were talking about this subject matter of the future is combining technology with high touch. So it's like, how do we marry it to like, like quick and lending tree and whatever, like they've got the high tech, you need to have that. Like you're going to need to be able to, especially with the price compression, all that, you're going to need to be able to process ones more efficiently. You're going to need to be able to leverage technology. But what they don't have and will never have is the high touch piece. And that's the part that I don't think ever really goes away because now it may shrink the size of the industry because maybe there will be some percentage of the audience that won't care about that. But I still think there will always be a market for the people that want to actually deal with a competent human being that cares that they feel like they've developed a relationship with. It's educated them on what they need to be choosing in the process. And it is going to really display some proactive kindness and customer service. And you combine that with technology and I think that's the formula going forward that we're going to need to be adopting to be successful. But absolutely doing the homework, the reconnaissance. I mean, if you've got a real estate agent that you're thinking about pursuing, they closed 23 transactions last year and 22 more listings. I don't know. Maybe you don't get together with that one. Maybe they're not controlling the business. Maybe you want to work with, if you look at somebody who's been in the business two years but closed 17 buyers sides last year and they're like, well, they're a hockey stick. I mean, that person's got a lot of growth potential, right? I mean, I do think you have to be intelligent in terms of who you target and pursue for sure. Absolutely. And I bring that up just because, you know, it's funny when I get on these interviews like this and probably similar for you, you know, in coaching that you're involved in things come out of that and then you're interviewed by other people. And so when you and I touch base the other day, it was really fresh for me because I just had a couple of coaching calls where we had this kind of conversation. I was on the phone with a Sloan officer and he told me that one out of five agents that he met with sent him a deal, only one out of five, right? And I thought to myself, hmm, I'm talking to Tim Bohem today, I'd be curious to hear, right? Let's talk about where he thinks the problem lies within that. And I think we kind of touched on the first half, which is, and I already know he told me, you know, to use his words, he says, he went in swinging hard. It's really instructive right there. Yeah. Pretty self-aware. I mean, at least he knows that I actually commend whoever that person was for two things. Number one is, having the self-awareness that he was swinging hard because a lot of people don't realize that too knowing that he only closed one out of five. I think just knowing your numbers is important. And if I can comment on what I would want to ask that person, it would be, have you gone back to the four that didn't or the four out of every five that don't and honestly ask them for help? Say, could you do me a favor? I know that you're busy, but I just would appreciate a really direct, candid, honest response. We met, you chose to not send business to me. I accept that and I appreciate your time. Would you mind sharing with me why you chose to not send business to me? Wow. Because what we want to do is we want to isolate, and I would do that, I used to do this with borrowers a lot. Like when a borrower wouldn't go with me, I'd ask them like, I'm curious, I mean, I'm respect the fact you've chosen to work elsewhere, why did you not go with me? And I would learn a lot, right? So then that gives me the reconnaissance info as to what I need to work on in my presentation. So like, let's say that three out of every four of these realtors say, well, because you know what, you're just your energy was super aggressive, and I felt like you were just, you know, trying to close me so hard, that would be really valuable to know, right? And so you can pull back a little and be more measured in your approach. But I think that that's where, you know, because it's so personal, right? Like, you know, when somebody says no to us, it hurts. And we take it kind of personally, or if they don't return our calls after the first appointment, and we start making up stories about, you know, and like us, or whatever, and then we get like resentful, and we just stop calling them, it's a missed opportunity to learn where you need to grow. Absolutely. Okay. Cool. Just because I know we're limited for time, I want to kind of step up if you will, the speed of questioning, if that's okay, little rapid fire session work, right? Yep. And again, this is all coming out of the real world, you know, conversations I'm having with people. Okay. Another loan officer, two out of ten deals lost. I only closed two out of ten deals. I asked them why, lost because of a quarter percent difference in rate. Now knowing what I know about you in terms of like I talked about in the intro, right, being very intentional in designing your customer experience, I'd like to present that to you, perhaps. And I know it's probably a little bit unfair, but maybe a coachable moment, a teaching opportunity. If that loan officer is listening, two out of ten deals, why did you lose them his answer? It came down to they left me over a quarter difference in rate. What do you think's missing based on that limited info you have? What do you think's missing from that loan officer's plan? It's not possible, obviously, for me to answer this question directly because I need to ask more information from this individual, but here's the interesting thing. In our performance accelerator coaching program on a quarterly basis, I do a master mining call with all the loan officers who are being coached in that program and there's really big time originators in that program and I had to call with them yesterday. So this subject matter was brought up more than once, which was I'm losing because of margin compression and I was able to ask these people detailed questions on this video conference call about what was transpiring. What I would tell you to everyone listening first of all is, if it's an eighth in rate, I believe that you can always work with an eighth in rate. You can always get the deal over an eighth if you bring true value and you have to display that value and your presentation at point of sale is your lifeblood of your success in this business and you always have to be evolving and growing and looking how to make it better. And I can give some examples if you want me to as to how to make it better. When you get to a quarter, you're going to have some attrition. There's no question. There's going to be people that are just going to be that rate sensitive to work no matter what value you bring, a quarter is a quarter and it could add up to a significant amount of money for most people. You get to three eighths, which some people are dealing with on the jumbo loans or the competing with loans and chasing all that, that even becomes more difficult. So there are certain things, the first thing, the first and easiest thing when you have a rate differentiation is to make sure you're educating the consumer on what the true dollars are that we're talking about in terms of the cost. So if they're saying, look, this person's a quarter of a percent better and that's $69 a month less. Okay, hold on. It's actually $38 a month less or whatever the calculation is because of the after tax. So you're going to make sure that you're doing your job and you're fiscally literate enough to show somebody that the real difference is this, not what you're calculating, which is X per year, in this case, say $420 or something. And then circling back to the things that you've already hopefully articulated to them that you're bringing to the relationship that no one else is. So that's where my is an example and then I'll stop and if you want more, I'll give you more, but I wanted you wanted this to be rapid fire. So I don't want to go too long. But that's where always, always early in the conversation, articulating for the client that my job really just begins when you're first one closes with me because from there it's my job to assist you in managing where just the evidence that you'll ever take on your life. Most people that do what I do for living just provide the debt and walk away, I don't make that mistake. I'm going to be proactively looking for opportunities to add to your financial wealth over time. These would be doing refinances and when the market provides those opportunities, you're not going to have to pick up the phone call me and I'm going to be looking for those opportunities for you. I'm going to be introducing other people in the financial services sector that can save you money. If you're referring out business to real to accountants and financial planners, you're making up more than the $48 a month or whatever it is in some cases. If you are taking a proactive, complete service approach to winning at point and sale, I'll stop there. I mean, there's so much more and I mean, you can probably spend 15 more minutes on it, but that's a short answer. I mean, I'd have to analyze each individual's scenarios to what they're doing at point and sale. Add these three things, the equation, and I think you could start overcoming a quarter much more easily than you are now. Well, first of all, thanks for your honesty for just acknowledging that there is some nutrition at a quarter percent because there are people out there that the 800 FICO engineer out of Silicon Valley where he knows he can get it anywhere. Like you said, they got a lot of deposits at a bank and so that quarter rate, depending on loan, that could add up to a lot. I think you hit the nail on the head with what I wanted to get across to the listeners is more often than not when I hear somebody losing two out of 10 deals based on a quarter rate. It just continues to surprise me, I guess, that even today that too many loan officers are not, you know, to use that word again, intentional or aren't architecting, you know, from the moment of hello, right? This is Jeff at XYZ Mortgage. They're not architecting a process or a questioning dialogue or anything that's really differentiating them at all. They're just defaulting to rate. But still, even though we've been banging this drum for a long time, I couldn't agree with you more, man. I mean, it's like, I've always felt like, you know, having a system for selling yourself or what I, the metaphor that I use is, you know, what is the mechanism for improving your batting average, you know, if you use a baseball metaphor, I mean, you get so many at bats, the people that are most successful in the ones that have the highest batting average and the people that have the highest batting average are the ones that are presenting true value in a proactive way. Every time at point of sale a minute that they talk to the person, like, if you get off the phone with me after the first phone call and you've not experienced unprecedented value for me, shame on me, like, I mean, that's my opportunity to do it, like, right there, you know, and a lot of long originators right now are like, they kind of have pond off that initial phone call to like an undergrad, you know, a loan officer assistant who takes that initial lead call and gathers the information, so I get it because, you know, two, three years ago, you had so many refusals that you had to do that to just be able to facilitate all the business. They get to try to reevaluate that because ultimately at the end of the day, you know, you're probably the best salesperson on your team, at least you should be, and I don't know that I'd be taking any chances with letting an understudy handle that initial lead call. You got one shot to make a first impression. If you're not bringing clear, you know, unquestionable value and then they get on the phone with somebody else, you're probably, you're batting average is going to go way down. Right on. Right on. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Great answer. What's your take on loan officers? I mean, I kind of know why I'm hesitating is I already kind of know the answer, but I've never asked you this question, so, you know, loan officers who say, hey, I don't want to rely on agents for all of my business, and I want to, right, be more self-sourced. I'm sure you hear that with. How do you respond to that? Well, I mean, I get it. And I agree. I think that realtors should be a, you know, a source of business, but I don't know you should be even your primary source. I think that you're putting too many eggs in one basket, especially going forward. I think realtors are having less and less control of the transaction. I think the most underutilized or under accessed part of the business is your past customer database. It starts with every loan that you do for somebody. You have an opportunity for 45 to 60 days to really blow somebody away. That's why, you know, I've always, you know, preached the perfect loan process and, and during that period to get introductions to other people in their sphere of influence is very, very important. But then after the deal closes, staying in touch with them in meaningful ways, not just putting them on a drip campaign that's sale and that they know that, you know, you're just sending out, but really connecting with them in a personal way as much as you possibly can. So when it does come time for them to have another need or know if somebody who has need, they're going to think of you because they feel like they owe it to you because you've been great about staying connected with them. I also feel like, you know, there's other pillars of influence such as accountants and financial planners that are good to approach. But lastly, you know, in our master's program in April, you know, in that group, we've got some of the top originators in the country. I mean, that are in that group and it's a real great thank-kank of ideas. That was the centralized focus and we're going to be reconvening in DC in October and continuing on from there, which is how do we get to the consumer direct? How do we become less reliant upon anyone? And you know, we'll be taking a look at that in great depth with Facebook marketing and other types of social media endeavors. Michael Shane, who is an amazing loan originator out of Seattle, Washington, he's been the top producing agent in that marketplace for years now. You know, he generates between 350 and 500 leads a month on his own and 60% of the business is purchased now. And they do it. They have a lot of money and time is estimated, but they do it with SEO. So you know, whether it be SEO or, you know, really querying and targeting with your Facebook advertising, I would be doing that right now. If I was an originator, I would be allocating a certain percentage of my financial resources and time into consumer direct. Another percentage in my existing client database and another percentage into, you know, the referral partners, if you will, which are very important pillars. That's not going away. I mean, realtors still control the deal, but I do think that we need to diversify as my point. We're going to the Facebook point and you know, investing some time and money in that. Would you be of the type that would be wanting to learn and understand the mechanisms of succeeding with Facebook as yourself or just want to, you know, outsource and hire? Yeah, you're asking the wrong guy because I avoid technology like it's my polio. I'm not a tech guy very much. Like as an example with our coaching company, Scott Bruton, who's a coach with our company is a super efficient, you know, social media tech guy and he does all of that for us, right? Because that's his joy and he is genius and I let him run with it. It just depends who you are. Like if you're good at that stuff and you enjoy that stuff, yeah, you can insource it. And if you don't, then you should outsource it. However, I just want to say this about outsourcing. Sometimes I'm seeing too much of Jeff, when it comes to the peep, it's so clear to me when somebody's outsourcing their social media marketing because it's, it's not authentic. There's nothing to it that's human. It's like, there's a coach in our industry who I follow on Instagram and I've seen this individual's post now the last three weeks and this person is clearly outsource their social media and their posts are, they're just not good in my opinion. There's nothing about them that are, that are real, you know, it's just like, oh, this is just like some, some, some boilerplate thing that probably a hundred other business professionals that are using the same social media consultants are sending out to their friendship base, right? Like I mean, that's, I think, waste of money. I think you have to have some uniqueness, especially the more and more that people go in that direction. And I think that loan originators need to get over themselves, sorry for being so blunt and really start embracing video. Yes. I hear far too much of, oh, I don't like to be on camera and I don't like, like, you know what, it's too bad. I mean, it's where, it's where things are headed. Like, if you want to connect with people, there's no more powerful tools in video and getting good at it's really important. And it's not, when I coach a lot of my loan originators, like one on one, on, will break down their videos that they're creating and it's the way you frame yourself off, are you looking directly into the lens so people feel like you're talking directly to them? Are you overly scripted so then you feel, it feels like you're reading something and you, I can't really feel you and you're authenticity. I mean, there's, and then there's a whole bunch of other analytics around what videos pull and what videos don't pull. And closing what I'll say is that what statistically is proven when you look at all the analytics from the social media experts is that what people look at and what people comment on and what people like and, and most importantly, what people forward are the things that mean something to them, not the things that mean something to you. So sorry, but the picture of you with your arm around the husband and wife at the closing table saying we close another loan in 17 days, they don't care about that. They don't, they care about, everybody you're sending out to that to just cruises right on through that. It means nothing to them. What they care about are things that are meaningful to them. It's like quotes, like personal development quotes, spiritual quotes. That's why they pull. That's why funny videos pull people forward that stuff because it made them laugh and it meant something to them. That's why when you ask those questions and them as silly as they could be, like what's your favorite color that you'll see on Facebook, believe it or not, that's just statistically pulls because you're engaging the person and you're getting them to interact with you. Those are the things that statistically have traction versus, you know, please welcome our new employee who's our office manager, you know, people that they don't like that stuff. No, absolutely. You bring up a great point there and I agree with you on video, man, that's a whole another session, you know, there and of itself, as you may know, you know, I teach branding classes for real estate agents and I bring up video a lot and just the other day I put Bellevue Washington, you know, bring it up again. How many people are doing video in a room of 50 people? Like, you know, four, five, six, seven hands go up, right? And you're like, I don't understand. You're in a business that requires you to get out in front of people, right? Outside of your comfort zone. And to your point about content and what's shareable, this is the type of content that, you know, I think this aligns with what you said, as I tell agents, your content has to be three different types, educational, entertaining and convincing, three different types. And that's, you know, that's what's going to get people engaged. And so, you know, the educational stuff for those loan officers that are listening, that could be things like market updates or here's the market forecast for your county, et cetera, you know, your take on the latest Fed funds, high grade, you know, rate hike and all that stuff. And then, you know, have a personality, right? Yeah, share some other funny videos, but it's okay, right? You just be yourself. I guess that's the big takeaway. That's what I always tell them. Just be yourself, you know? I agree with you. And the point to the point that you make, the reason that like, here's what the market trends are doing work is because it means something to them. Once again, like they own a home, and of course, I'm going to look at that because I want to know it has my home gone up in value. See, that's something that's, again, falls into the category of the recipient likes it. You know, not you think that this is what you need to be sending. Think about them and what they want of you and send them that. That's what buys brain cells and has you top of mind consciousness. Right on. Amen to that. All right, my friend, this has been a wonderful education and a great sharing. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time for being here before we wrap up. You bet, man. This is a great gift to my audience. So it was great to finally, you know, have you share yourself with our listeners. Tell us what you're doing. What are you working on that you're excited about? I know you and I talked before. There's kind of a new project or something you've gotten the worst would love to share that with my listeners. Yeah, thank you. So obviously, I have my coaching company, performance experts coaching, and if you want to find out more about our coaching programs, you can just, you can, you can go to our website. I'll give you that in a second. But the other thing that I have for the first time, I mean, I wrote the business plan in 2001 for loan toolbox and I never would have thought, you know, 17 years later that I would create another product. I mean, this is the first product that I've created in 17 years. But I felt that there was such a, I had so much passion. Maybe you felt it in this interview around this whole connection thing and the need to be able to understand how to stay connected, deeply connected with our clients to where they come back and they were for business to us and how to cultivate true meaningful, solidified relationships with referral partners. And I therefore have created a whole system for that. It's called the complete referral partner success system. It takes you through step by step how to develop relationships with realtors, accountants, financial planners, and insurance agents. It also takes you through step by step how to effectively do an annual financial review with your client to generate business because there's so many missed opportunities. People just think that it's all about trying to get a refi and that's only one tenth of the opportunity. There are literally ten opportunities in every annual financial review that you do. There's over three hours of video broken down into, you know, 15-minute segments. There are 14 stages to the system. It involves quizzes so you can make sure you're retaining and you have competency. It involves all of the transcripts of all the scripts that I give you, what to say, including questions that you should be asking when you meet for a cup of coffee for the first time of the potential referral partner. It's very comprehensive and I'm super proud of it. My team did most of the work. I created the content but they're the ones who created the dynamic delivery of the content that I think is really the secret sauce behind it. I'm super proud of them. You can find out more about it very easily by going to www.performance-experts.net. So performance-don't forget the dash-experts.net and that will take you right to the landing page of the complete referral partner success system. There's also access to a private Facebook community that we monitor and where you'll be networking with other people that have purchased the system, so that's another nice thing the community component to it. And yeah, I think that anybody that really wants to, I mean the price is very inexpensive. It's $799 one time. You don't have to pay an annual fee for it or anything. I mean, look, if you get one real-to-relationship, it's worth thousands of dollars so it should pay for itself as long as you implement it. I'm excited about it and would love to be teaching you if it's something that you're interested in. That's awesome. So I want to make sure, because I'm going to put all these links in the show notes. The website is performance-experts.net. Yeah, that's the website for the product and the website for our company is performance-experts.com. Oh, okay. So I'll put both in there for those who want to learn more about your company and the leadership 360 coaching. That's at performance-experts.com and this product is at.net and I'm going there right now just so I can look at it. That's awesome, man. Hey, I remember a loan toolbox. I was a member, used it religiously and it's good to see you back creating content so people can continue to say if they're not ready for coaching or whatever at that level, right? This is one way they can still get access to a lot of the great stuff you're doing. And I'm looking at it. This is awesome. It looks sharp, man. Love it. Thanks. I'm really proud of the job they did. My team did a really great job. So I appreciate you taking a look at it, Jeff. Thanks for having me. You bet. Listeners, thank you very much for tuning in. As always, we appreciate you. If you like today's episode, do us a favor, maybe leave us a little comment or review. I tune Stitcher wherever you're listening to this on the blog. Thanks for tuning in and we will 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? Real quick. You've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before. I just want to quickly remind you that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our Mortgage Marketing Pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you, agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, attract and convert agents into referral partners. Plus, done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class, getting agents, butts and seats, partnering with affiliates real easy. But that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top L.O.'s authors, speakers, and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market. And as an extra bonus for limited time, for all new members, you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere from 8 to 50 transactions in the last 12 months, and we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagedmarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call, we'll have a chat. We'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to mortgagedmarketing.pro.