Ep #86: Getting Your Clients and Referral Partners to Go from Casual to Committed

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. And brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in mortgage marketing. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimper, welcome to this week's episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. So glad you've tuned in. If you're liking the episodes, hey, do us a favor. Take a moment and give us a little shout out on iTunes, on Stitcher, on the blog, on Facebook, wherever you're listening to this and make sure you leave us a review, how you like it. I appreciate you for doing that. As always, you can always reach out to me. I'd be curious to know what your number one business priority is right now for the rest of 2018. Feel free to email me info at Mortgage Marketing Institute.com and just in the subject line, put priority, right? I want to know how I can help you. What is your priority? What aspect of your business? If you had a magic wand and you could change one aspect of your business, what would it be? I'd love to hear from you. Feel free to email me. Let's get into this week's special guest, Rick Sheerer, out of my hometown of Boston, Massachusetts. Yeah, whenever I start interviewing somebody from Boston, the accent comes back out. And Rick is a senior mortgage planner with MSA Mortgage in Framingham, Massachusetts. Go graduates. All right. Bring on the haters. Rick has been in the mortgage business since 2001, he graduated from the prestigious Bentley University, with degrees in finance and marketing. No, no. Rick's in an elite club. Rick's part of the billion dollar club in loan volume. Yeah, that means in his career, about two years ago, he said he surpassed the billion dollar mark in terms of origination. Rick's kicking it. Rick is just doing some amazing things out there and what we talk about on this episode is a couple of key things he does. One is past client reviews, annual mortgage reviews. You've heard it said before, annual mortgage reviews, whether it's annual, whether it's six months, whether it's quarterly, it doesn't matter. You need to have a process in a system for staying in touch with your past database where you can actually have conversations with a percentage of them to drive referrals, whether that be a referral for buyer or a refi, whatever the case is, but that doesn't happen unless you connect. Rick has got probably the most efficient system for being able to, you know, a non-intrusive way have conversations with past clients, but only talk to the clients that want to talk to him. So you hear how he uses emails and automation, things like slide broadcast, things like online calendar schedulers so that when Rick sends an email to his past database clients, he gets upwards of 30% of the people to respond, right? So he is generating anywhere from two to four loans per month just from his past database, just from sending out an email and a voice broadcast. So you're going to hear his strategy and how he does that. The next you're going to hear Rick's concept for real estate agent masterminds. This is brilliant. If you're looking for a way to break into the, quote, top producers in your local market, and if you're not right, one who's into co-calling and, you know, out there doing popping into offices and, you know, trying all those more, you know, heavy lifting, if you will, approaches to tracking and capturing realtors, listen to Rick's concept of the mastermind here, right? This is a concept where he get, he identifies 10 key agents that he wants to get in a room and literally have a mastermind discussion that's transparent, it's open, it's honest, it's sharing. So we're going to talk through how Rick does that. What his pre-interview process is, how he invites agents, how he identifies which agents. The questions he asks them ahead of time, how he sets them up to ensure that the mastermind is going to be amazing and that there will be sharing and transparency and that their egos are set aside. So you're going to learn all of this by listening to Rick's process. And then lastly, we talk about something that's really cool that Rick has called the buyer's playbook. And there's links to the show notes and everything we talk about here, buyersplaybook.com, is where you want to go check out more information when you hear Rick talk about his ambassador program and the buyer's playbook. And this is again, another way Rick is adding value and helping to, you know, the old saying is, you know, you give a man a fish, right, feed him for a day, teach man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime, well, the buyer's playbook is a concept that Rick is bringing to the real state community, real estate agents in his local market to teach them how to fish. And the fishing happens by helping them get referrals from vendors, right, CPAs, financial planners, home inspectors, plumbers, movers, etc. And Rick will unpack his concept of the buyer's playbook and the ambassador program. And even tell you a little bit about how he's looking for additional ambassadors around the country to take the buyer's playbook into your local market. So that's that great episode. Lots of lessons in this. Appreciate you being here. As always, let's get into this week's show. Hey, Rick, welcome to the show. Hey, man, I'm so happy and flattered to be here, I appreciate it. It is my pleasure. My listeners are in for a treat because I have been watching you from a distance for some time. You're obviously kind of a regular fixture in the mortgage coach community, shout out to Dave Savage and that whole community, they've lost a great content. So I wanted to bring you to my audience, my listeners. And in preparing for this, I was doing a little bit of a reading up and I wanted to ask if this is true. Do I have a billion dollar man on the line here? Well, you know what it is, it's more than a business for so long that you almost have to get to that number. But yeah, reach that goal a couple of years ago and that's just, you know, for 16 years. So, you know, that's a pretty elite club though, the billion dollar club. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, it's doing the right thing is always the right thing and you keep doing that over and over again and putting your head down and you know what happens. So. All right, you said something interesting there, doing the right thing is always the right thing. I like that. What does that mean for you and your business kind of like on a daily basis? Yeah, you know, it's just you've got to make a lot of decisions as a loan officer, both with clients, both with referral partners. And you know, it's just always coming from a place that you want to do the right thing for the client. You want to do the right thing for your business partners, you know, and you don't get to cut up in the financial part of it or the, you know, oh, I've got to make my commission here and things like that. I mean, you know, falling on the sword and taking responsibility, you know, all of those things because we're all we finance real estate and things happen. So, you know, just always coming from a place of, you know, I'm going to do the right thing here, you know, actually just yesterday, you know, we just, we did a loan for an FHA borrower that, you know, I'm going to give up the commission and probably pay a couple of bucks out on my pocket to make it happen. But it was the right thing to do. And I didn't even think twice about it. So, you know, funny you say that because I was going to ask you that question if you had ever given up a commission just for the sake of the deal. Oh, my God. When don't I? I mean, no, absolutely. It's, I feel like I do it a lot more. But again, I think it's, I get more business that way because, you know, I got on the phone with everybody and just said, hey, here's what's going on. Here's what, what happened and we're going to, you know, we're going to fix it. Here's how we're going to do it. And this is, this is how it's going to be. And, you know, the, I took a situation from a client saying, hey, your payment is going to go up $125 a month because of what happened. We're going to, we're keeping your payment the exact same and you're good and, you know, everybody else. I appreciate it. But, you know, you got to do that a bunch of times to be able to do $100 million. When you have a mindset of like, you know, I got to get mine and it's just, you know, sometimes I'll see you down. No, you're right. I mean, I'm glad we just kind of isolated that firm for a moment just in the beginning here because, you know, not everybody has that mindset, where it's just like, you know, doing the right thing is always the right thing. Man, I love that. That's going to be a sign on my office here. Yeah. That actually kind of makes decisions easier then, doesn't it? When you kind of operate by that principle? Absolutely. I mean, you know, when you, when you care and, yeah, when you can take the financial piece out of it, like if I'm going to do all the work on this loan and I'm not going to be paid for it, that I'm fine with that. Because I know it's going, like it's going to happen. I mean, and, you know, just without getting too in depth on this one situation, it was my biggest referrals, one of my buyers agent on my biggest referral source, like, you know, jeez, matter if I blew them up and said, I'm sorry, client, you know, I know it was your fault. And I know, but, but, you know, it's, but we're going to do this and we're going to have to do this, make this happen. And, you know, the lead agent was like, call me last night at nine o'clock and go, is I heard what you did, like rock star. You're making me look like a rock star. And this is why we do business with you. That's it, you know. Right. For the greater group. Yeah. So anybody listening, right, always do the right thing because it's always the right thing to do. I love that. I've done that as well myself. I remember cutting a check, you know, a pretty large check back in the day for, for an error and a mistake. And like you said, it's funny. It's, it's not really on you, hopefully, when that happens, but when it does, right, you still got to do that. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. That's funny. It's like, yeah, that's really easy to do for the billion dollar guy. What about the guy who's got two loans, he's closing this month, huh? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but again, listen, I used to close two loans a month, you know, I mean, getting in the business, I said, I got to do four and a half loans per month to cover my nut, right, to cover what my expenses and cover, you know. And so, yeah, I mean, you, you're going to climb out of it by doing the right things. Right. And so, you know, there's different ways to come out good on the other side and sometimes it's not always a financial way, but maybe it's picking up the phone the second you know something's going sideways and you're handling it the second, you know, it goes sideways. As time goes by and you know that, that, you know, it deals, a deal is not set up the way it should have been or something's going on that phone gets heavy. And so the second you can pick that up and make it right, again, it might not be a financial thing. Maybe it's something else that you do. We just do the right thing. That's right. Not sure. Love it. Okay. Cool. So, let's get into kind of the main focus of what captured my attention when I saw you talking about the couple of key things you do in your business, which I just the way you execute is really impressive and amazing. Let's deal with the first one, which is annual mortgage reviews. Yeah. It's that subject that it's still just, I don't understand why loan officers overlook that. Why they don't put their clients in a database, something other than Excel, right, that allows you to manage and communicate that. So, but when in your career, did you realize that annual mortgage reviews with past clients would help you grow your business? When did you implement that? Yeah. So it was probably four or five years ago, actually it was at Todd Duncan sales mastery and someone was up on stage talking about her interview process. And it just resonated with me because you're right. We have this gold mine of all of these people that have done business with us. We don't have to go and find them. They're already right there. And in the ReFive Booms, we used to always scan our spreadsheets and go, who's got, you know, I've got, I'm at three and a half percent, who's at four that I can go and bring them down, right? It was just one track mind. Where can I reduce the 30 year effects or where can I convert an arm? And we're giving up all of these other people, right? That we don't know what's going on in their world. Like we don't know if they're going to sell in two years, but they're in a 30 year fix and probably should be in a five one or, you know, vice versa. Like man, to really get in with my client and go deep with them on a 15 minute call, right? It can change the trajectory of my business. And so what I went out to do, and I'll tell you, your original question when you just asked, like, why aren't people doing it? You know, what I've heard as I go and coach a bunch of loan options across the country is the fact that the phone is heavy, because I can't remember if the Johnson's had a positive experience with me, or I can't, you know, they have all of this, this angst around. I'm going to call someone out of the blue and they could be cooking dinner or they could be, you know, picking their kid up from, and it's going to be an awkward call. And, and what if they say no, Rick, I'm all sad or we didn't have a great experience, you have that rejection. Right. Some people don't do it. And listen, by the way, I have that same fear, I, I don't like rejection, right? I don't, I'm not, I hate getting rejected. I've never called, called into a real estate office. I've never, you know, I've never, you know, gone somewhere that, that I wasn't welcome to in. It's just, that's my personality. So what I did was, is I figured out a way to get to that past client on their annual review time and send them a really captivating email and it's short and sweet. It's not, that's not a big long thing because no one's going to read it. But it's something like, hey, Mr. Johnson, it's time for your interview call. I'll tell you, you know, with the economic climate right now and the political climate right now, it's really important that we spend 10 to 15 minutes on a call to catch up. And so I can tell you a little bit about how that may affect you. Now my schedule is right here, please book a time that works for you. And I commit to you that when you get off our call, it will be worth all 15 minutes. I also have a couple of questions to ask you at the end of our call, looking forward to catching up. And what we do internally, and again, I don't, I don't drive this. I do have an assistant, Nick, who will set these calls up every month. He'll come into my office and he will do what's called a mail merge. So, you know, back in the word, the word days, we could do those mail merges and the letters and things. Well, you can do that same thing now with Outlook. So anybody using Outlook, there's a way you can Google it to do a mail merge. So I can put, I can drop their name within the email. So it sounds like it's personalized and I can shoot them all out and they go out individually, but within the matter of like 30 seconds. So it's not, doesn't get caught up in spam. That's it. I toss it out there and I would say 15 to 20% of the people that I send it to will respond. I go to slide broadcast.com and I create a voicemail and I only create it within the season. So it's winter time. I'm up in Boston. So, you know, it's snowing out, I might say something like, hey, you know, if you're, you know, avoiding the snow out there or whatever, but it's a, hey, jump, Mr. Johnson, listen, I sent you an email a day or two ago. If you didn't get it, check your spam. But in there, there's a calendar to book your inner review. If you can, you know, jump on there, book the time, I guarantee you it's going to be worth the 15 minutes that we're going to spend on the phone. And then a couple days later for the people who still haven't responded, a quick email goes up and say, hey, I would still love to connect with you in a review, you know, book the time. And then I'm done, right? But what I usually will do is I'll get between 30 to 45 calls booked every month with people and past clients. And by the way, if you have an assistant, you don't do any of it, right? This is all button pushed by Nick. And if you have to do it yourself, which is totally cool, have an accountability partner in your office, right? To make sure that both of you guys are doing it because that's where people fall short. They're not consistent with it. If you're consistent with it, you'll do a couple more deals a month, and that's going to be a big impact on your business. Just to be clear, so you are then segmenting those who immediately responded that email, they're not receiving the voice broadcast? Correct. Okay. All right. Well, you're a person on your team is. That's really good. That's awesome. By the way, just to clarify for people listening, you know, a couple of times you said, hey, here's my calendar. So what Rick does is he puts a link to an online calendar, which integrates to his assuming your outlook. It does. Yeah. So things like, I think you use Calendly, right? I don't. I actually use Schedule Once, and we've been looking at a couple of them, but I haven't gone away from Schedule Once yet, just right now it's, it's easy. Yeah. Yeah. So there's like Schedule Once, I use that as well. I used to be on timetrade.com, and I got away from that. I like Schedule Once better, and then there's also Calendly. Like I said, so what that is listeners is, you know, if you're assuming you're using outlook, actually, you can use other things as well, like Gmail, that will integrate to your calendar. It'll allow people to book a time on your calendar based on your availability that you set and structure in there. So people can't book, let's say, you know, the same day, people can't book around certain time parameters and stuff. So you haven't checked that out, too. So it's a smart way to leverage your talk. Yeah. Japanese just add some real quick to that. Sure. If you don't do any reviews, do any reviews, it doesn't matter. I'll tell you, one of the biggest things that you will do in your business, moving it from reactive to proactive is starting to use an online scheduler. Like, and that's if you have someone answering your phones, and instead of interrupting you while you're doing it in the middle of something, they can go on and schedule the time. Like scheduling your day will move you from the craziness of being reactive to every time that phone rings, to being like a doctor with an appointment. And I have all the clients call me, like in this, it tells them, you know, at that time call me. So now I'm at my desk, I know that Mr. Smith is calling me in five minutes, I'm setting up his file and we're going to get right into it. So if you have not, and so it's funny, I'm a first adopter in a lot of things, and my business partner in the office, he is not. And I was on schedule once for almost two years when he finally said, I'm going to finally do it. And he walked in my office three weeks later and goes, you just changed my life, right? So that's how powerful it is. So I just encourage you guys, if you don't do it now, man, put it into your into your business and it's going to make a big, big impact. So you're using that to also schedule initial conversations with borrowers? Yeah, I mean, think about this, right? What are you doing now? Hey, can you talk it to? No, I've got a meeting at two. How about 230? I'm coming in at two. It's all of that back and forth. Here's the scripting that I use. Hey, Mr. Johnson, I'm looking forward to speaking with you. Here is the link to my calendar book, a time that works for you, right? But really, who does it work for? Yeah, for you. By calendar, right? But it's all in the scripting and how you do it. Hey, to avoid any back and forth, it's really great. Go click on this link, book a time that worked for you and I cannot wait to connect with you at that time. Love it. Fantastic. Very smart way to work. And it's so simple. It's funny you bring that up because literally, you know, it's coming up for me while we talk about this is the freedom feeling that I have with using that tool. For that exact point, you said the back and forth, like people are like, hey, I want to get on your calendar, Jeff, and all I do is send them the link coach with Jeff.com. Oh, go there. Pick your time. I'm out. It's really cool. Awesome. Okay. You mentioned what was the percentage of people you get responding to the email 15 percent? The initial email is about 15 percent and that's because how do we all deal with email? Like you read it. Is it that important right now? I'm going to mark it as unread. I'll go back to it. Right. The voicemail gets them to one, if they didn't get it, they're searching for it if they want to talk to you. And two, it's pushing them to go back to the unread email, click it and book. And then the third one, you know, that's, I've really kind of exhausted all of them. I get a couple more. So, you know, if I'm sending this out to 150 people, I'm talking with about 40 to 50 a month, you know, depending on how it is. And I'm talking to people that want to talk to me, right? I've weeded out all the ones that maybe I had a bad transfer with them and I didn't have to, like, I'm not going to call that guy back. Fine. Cool. No problem. So, but I'm still talking with 30 to 40 people that want to talk to me and want to understand where they're at in conjunction to where their, their, their, their work is. Yeah. That's called work. It's smart people. Okay. So, what, what do you say to the people who, you know, is it always an annual mortgage review? Are you doing, like, some six month things, you know, things like that for those people who, you know, when I bring this up, they're like, well, you know, I don't have enough people at the 12 month mark yet. Yeah. Listen, talk whatever you want. Yeah. And we're all in the marketing business, right? So, however you want to phrase it, just the, you know, quarterly check up, every year check up, call it whatever you want to be back in front of your people. And yeah. So, do you, do you integrate that, you know, in, in scripting in terms of when you're dealing with a client, maybe at close or whatever, to set that up that they know that that annual review or whatever is coming? Yeah. And by the way, that's too late. Like, and I do do that, but talking with a client that I'm pre-approving or talking to a client that's about to go into process, I let them know you are always my client. Someone might service your mortgage, but know that you're always my client and you're going to hear from me every year. So we always make sure you're in the right product, you're in the right situation. And what that does is it makes them feel protected. Like I know that Rick will call me if something happens. And so, but again, I'm doing it at the pre-approval stage as you're saying, okay, here my, here's my competitive advantages, you know, five-star customer service, this is what's going to happen in the process. And know that you're always going to be my client, you're always going to hear from you when there's a big market movement, but at least annually. You know, that, that brings up an interesting topic of discussion just briefly here, because I know we have a couple other things to get to, but that makes me really curious, considering somebody who does the volume in the units that you do, you know, what I'm hearing a lot of feedback from loan officers in the market today is it's harder to win. People are gubbing at double, abbing you more, obviously, they're doing the right shopping thing. So I'd be curious to know, you know, you're kind of you're scripting your, how you differentiate right during that initial conversation, and I'll give you the context on this. I was talking with a loan officer and asking him, you know, how does he articulate his visible value? And I asked him to send me a summary, like a bullet points of how this script, right during that initial call. And while he told me he's, he's doing one thing on the, what he sent me was completely different. It was just the typical bullet points, right? Yeah. Well, well, are you in the market? What's your timeline to buy all that? So what do you, how do you do that? How do you set yourself up to win from the first conversation? Okay. Now this is risky, right? And I, and I know it is the risky show. This is a good good. I knew you were edgy. So here's the thing, I always tell them that you will have a five star customer service experience with us. Like it's just, I'm setting the bar high and I'm doing that for a reason. So Mr. Johnson, here's what's going to happen. We're going to provide you a five star customer service experience a couple of different ways. Okay. The first one is, I want your permission to over communicate with you. Do I have your permission, right? First, I'm home, I said, I can't do it. I mean, bring it on. Like tell me everything, like communicate, yeah, absolutely, great. So Mr. Johnson, I'm going to over communicate with you and we're going to do that a couple of different ways. So we on my team, we use flow of fine, flow of I as up, you know, just head them on the podcast. Yeah. Great. Awesome. Like they're rock stars. We're going to do a couple of different ways. You're going to get a 14 bullet point benchmark, every time you hit certain benchmarks and you, your agent and your attorney going to all hear about it, right? So you know, wherever I go, my goal is to never have you wonder what is going on with your mortgage in the process. So we're going to do that. We're going to have, you know, customized communication and you're also going to get voicemails here and there as you hit certain benchmarks as well. So just know that we're going to over communicate with you. Okay. We're also going to make sure that all of our timelines are met way before they're due. So in Boston here, we have a, we're a two step process. So you've got your offer, your purchase and sale and then you've got your mortgage commitment. So I always say, as is my goal is to have your commitment done five days prior to what it's due. So five star customer service, Mr. Johnson isn't going to allow you to fall asleep and wake up at a closing table and 40 days from now. Like we need your help and they always laugh and I say, so what I'm going to ask you is to make sure you provide your documents within 24 to 40 hours so that my team can get everything done and get you and make this a smooth and smooth process. So if you're up for a five star customer service experience, it's what I'm going to commit to you and it's what we're going to deliver. And the online lender that I know you're talking to and the credit union, ask of them what kind of process they have and I think you're going to see that what I'm committed to and your experience is something that's going to be different than those people you're talking with. Nice. Don't like that. Sorry, engaging. Yeah, just, but again, when I say it's risky, like you can't be a loan officer that knows that your processor sucks, she can't have a communicate, she can't communicate. And you know, I mean, so you just have to make sure that if you do go out there and say you are going to get this, Mr. Johnson, that it happens because if it doesn't, it's going to be, it's going to hurt you even more than not doing it. So. Well, what's interesting in hearing that and thanks for sharing, by the way, is you know, we throw around this term five star client experience and all that kind of stuff. And yet most people don't articulate it, which is what you were doing there. You're basically, because you know, so we have a five star client experience here. Great. What the, what the hell does that mean? Well, let me map it out for you, right? And then you're like pointing out all the things that you're going to do differently during that process. It's going to be, it's going to be a dialogue. You're not just lecturing them, right? There's conversation. You're asking question. That I think is, is my point in, for those that are listening and your visible value, how you're going to, how are you going to demonstrate differences? You've got to get out of that, taking just the 1003 conversation, right? That's what everyone else is doing. And, and just if you, if you heard my, my language in there is, Mr. Johnson, in order to provide this customer service to you, I need you to get me your documents within 24 to 48 hours, is that something that you can commit to? So what, and they're saying, yes, like I've had, you know, once again, I'm going on vacation or whatever. And then we can work through that. But when the, when the client says, yes, I'm committed to that, now my processor has something to speak to when she's 72 hours still looking for the bank statement, right? So it, it, it, it, it, it brings them into the transaction as well, right? It's not just on me. If you want this customer service, you need to show up at your own rescue. And my clients, I literally, it's funny, I post closing out, I'll get on the phone with the client. She's like, you know, you said 24 hours, so I wanted to get it within 12, like I wanted to be an overachiever, you know, and so Jesus, and that's like, like to get a client to do that. Gee, you know, you want. So anyway. That's awesome. Love it. Love it. Hey, do you track your conversions like, you know, on, for, on apps to closing? Um, I think that makes sense. Yeah. I do. I'm going to tell you, um, we've, uh, we've fallen down a little bit, um, so we use pipe drive, um, to track all of ours. And all of the information is in there. It's not sorted out. The mate should be, um, and it's just, honestly, just because we've been, we've been straight out. And so that's one of the things that have fallen down, um, but we've set the pipe drive system up. Um, so pipe drive is a CRM. It's a visual CRM. You can move through different milestones, like pre-approved or initial conversations and app, you know, so we have everybody in there. That's where we keep all of our notes because I do have, uh, some production partners that we all jump in on stuff, but, um, I don't do it as good as I should. The information's there. I just need some time to go through it. Yeah. No, I get it. I was just curious because that's, again, a lot of, a lot of my questions, when I have somebody like you on the, on the, on the podcast comes from the conversations I have with, you know, some of the people that I work with, which, you know, you know, ask them. So, do you know how many people you need to speak to per week to get to hit your loan target? You said, when you first started, you need four and a half loans a month, the close to meet your monthly nut. Um, I'm assuming, you know, a guy like you probably knew how many people you needed to speak to per week to get your numbers, yeah, 100%, yeah, right. Yep. Okay. Um, all right. So let's transition into, um, big idea number two. So we talked about the annual mortgage reviews, great stuff, big idea number two. This is kind of like my wheelhouse, I love it. The Realtor Mastermind events, um, real quickly summarize what, what that means. What do you do? Yeah. Again, it's just another tool in order to, to actually add true value to your real estate partners, you know, bulletproofing your relationships, moving it from casual to committed. And so what I do is I bring in to a room, uh, I have a hotel here in Newton, Massachusetts that I love. It's got a great view. It's just a really good room, uh, got a commerce table in there. And I bring five real estate agents that know me, love me and trust me. Just people I've been working with for a long time, cheerleaders of mine. And then what I do is I invite five real estate agents that I know of, that I know what they do, you know, that they're, they're good people, um, but I just don't do any work with them. You know, I see them at networking events and things like that. And I invite five of them into a room. And what I do is I put on a three, three and a half hour event. And so what I do is I, I interview everybody that's going to be sitting at the table and I get them on the phone and say, Hey, I'm going to have a, an invitation, invitation only event. It's going to be 10 high, high, high, high integrity loan, uh, sorry, real estate agents sitting around a room and we are going to brain share. We are going to figure out where you're in your business. So what I do is I always, you know, I'm going to send you a questionnaire and, um, but what I want to do is I want you to commit to me to being open, honest and transparent during that event. Really looking to come to the event with, uh, looking to give more than you're looking to take, right? Because if I have 10 people showing up to want to give more than they're looking to take, it's going to be a really, really powerful event. Uh, and I always get their commitment because one of the big things with this type of event is you have one wrong person, one bad apple, one negative Nelly, they can, they can, they can create a different type of atmosphere in the event. So what I do is when they committed to, to, to that, um, I send them a questionnaire. My question here just says, where in your business are you doing really well? Where in your business are you struggling? Uh, what are your opportunities in your business that maybe you haven't, you haven't, um, capitalized upon? And if there were two things in your business that if you could change, would have the biggest dramatic impact, what would they be? Hmm. So, but think about this, right? These are 10 real estate agents that are coming to an event that I'm putting on that are pouring their heart out to me in these questionnaires, right? They're telling me everything from like, you know, I'm on the verge of bankruptcy. I've got, you know, or I, you know, I'm this, I've got that, I've got this, um, you know, I'm that at open house conversions. I'm really good at, you know, converting a seller, like, they've given me all of this information. And so what I do, because I, because I'm now moving my relationship with them from a more of an advisor, right, more of someone that's, I'm not just chasing them for that next mortgage. They give me all this information, I digest it, I put it on a spreadsheet, I have an idea of where everybody is in the room, where people are doing well, where they're not. And get out, so everybody comes in, I get up in front of everybody and go, listen, uh, everybody that's agreed to be here, uh, has agreed to be open honest, transparent. We're going to keep this positive, um, and I'm here just to moderate. Guess what guys? I don't, I'm not in the real estate business, right? So I don't have all the answers. This isn't the Rick Scherer show, like, you're, I'm not going to sit up here and tell you great, great, my rates are and how great my product is and, you know, that portfolio alone that I have, like, no one cares, like, this isn't about me today, this is about you guys. And so all I'm going to do here is I'm going to facilitate conversation, because I already know where everybody is and how, and so I'm going to bounce and ask people to, to jump in and things like that. And I'm going to stand up here, if we go down a rabbit hole that I don't think is going to serve everybody in the room. And so is everybody cool with that? Yes. Great. So I'm going to give you three minutes to go to your phones, handle any business that you have, and then we're going to put them away, because that, you know, took me like two events before I had to do that. And, and that's it. It's a three hour, three and a half hour. I always, I do it in the morning, right after rush hour traffic, I bring them lunch and it's a working lunch and we let, we end right at one and stuff from like 10 to one for 10 to one, and I bring the food in and all that type of thing. So as a loan officer, what I've done, I've just done a couple of things, you know, I've changed my relationship with these agents, right, I'm providing, I'm facilitating some really great agents in a room that's sharing how they're converting 50% of their buyers from open houses, you know, how they're, you know, how they're, you know, crushing on Facebook and Instagram and all that type of thing. And so typically the ways where we go is business development, conversion and time management. I've done 15 of them. And so now when I sit down one on one with a real estate agent, I ask them, what can I help you with? Like what's the one thing in your business that if you could change, you would have the most dramatic impact, they're like, well, open house conversions. Well, let me tell you how some of the other agents do it and maybe that will add value. So no, I know this is kind of a big concept and I know I'm, you know, if you've done a couple, you know, if you're only doing three or four loans, you might be intimidated by it. So let's just drill it down real quick, like grab two agents in different markets that you think may get along and can value each other and take them to lunch. Hey, just, just before you go there for a second, want to be clear, you're also inviting besides this group of five and five, are you inviting other agents or is it just the five five? It's 10 agents in a room. Oh, and I've done, so what I do is I sometimes I've taken that same group and done it quarterly. So they'll bring them back and we'll talk about some other other topics. But no, you keep it, you know, I've had anywhere from seven agents to 11 agents. So somewhere in that mix is perfect for this type of event. So it's interesting because I was on a different thought path with that, which is why you wouldn't also use this as a venue or platform. You've got your five agents, you know, like in Trash, you got the five that you don't know, but know of them, you know, the top producer panel essentially, why you wouldn't also use that to funnel in, right? Other agents. Well, you do, you just keep doing the events over and over again. Oh, I see. So that's your rotating, is it, so the, for the five, you know, like in trust, is that rotating as well? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So let me be clear. I'm sorry. So yeah, I will continue to do mastermind events with different agents. And then, and typically if I have five in a room, like three and a half that never used me, will use me again. Sure. Use me for the first time, for like, you know, three to four of those five will go like here, here's your next deal. And then now it's my chance to show them what I can do. So it's big ROI on the relationship thing because you're adding so much value. So, but then you just do that again. And then again, because if you had a room of 20 or 25 agents, you're not going to get the impact. Then if it's a much smaller group, not going to get the impact, what, with those leaders that you've invited? Yeah. I mean, because again, you only have a certain amount of time. And when you have a good group of people, the time flies. So, you know, to be able to dive deep on how Carlos hasn't covered one lead from an open house in five years, either than that. And again, does Carlos want to tell that to nine people or 29 people, right? So again, I create this intimacy as well, that it's like whatever shared in here, like, you know, let's be a little vulnerable, but you know, just know that we're all in it, right? So talking to Carlos around those five and then spending time with Jessica, because she converts 50% of her buyers, like we, there's a lot of meat on that bone. And if you keep it intimate, and listen, people can take this idea and go anywhere with it. The reason why I do it the way I do is I think that's a really great sweet spot. That's interesting. Right. I'm thinking about that. Right. That is actually a true mastermind. A version of that. If you do have 20 people in the room, that's actually a seminar, you know? Yes. Seminar a panel. You know, and it's, it's one way. It's just people sharing some ideas. It's not conversation. It's not a back and forth. And I want to touch on one thing as well is, and some people, I'm guarantee people are thinking this right now. So I'll put it out there. Oh, my God. Like they compete with each other or, you know, they're not going to talk about. So here's what I do, guys. I like sitting down and who do I care about? I care about the buyer agents, right? So I'll go to some of these top team, Keller Williams and say, Hey, give me one of your buyer agents. I'm going to bring him into this mastermind. I'm going to go over here and get buyer agents don't compete with each other, right? They just don't. They're just, they have, they're getting referrals from, from other places, they're not competing over buyers. What you do have to be careful of is bringing listing agents together that compete in the same market. They compete, right? So you have to be a lot more mindful. Now what I'd recommend is don't do a listing agent mastermind until you've done a couple buyer agent masterminds because you've got some high alphas in a room. You need to be able to, you know, have confidence in where this is all going to go. And I bring about six to seven max. My first listing agent mastermind, I had a couple, you know, like $700 million in the room. And it was just big, big producers. And I was supposed to have 10 or 11 and a bunch of them started dropping off. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm only got seven. Like me, I'll cancel it. I'm like, you know what? No, I'm going to do it. And I did it. And quite frankly, if I had one more person in that room, like it would have burst. You know, it was just, you know, they're all alpha, right? They also came from a place of sharing and I'll tell you agents walked out of there going like best three hours of my career being able to cross this. Because this person in this market, this market, they're not competing. But man, they appreciate the business that they all do. So do you get those agents though, they walk out of there and they want to, they want to come back, right? They're like, hey, Rick, when are you doing this again? Oh, 100%. And so like we're doing a couple at the end of the summer, kind of getting rid of the fall. And so I already have people already going, hey, can I get it on the fall one? And what I'll start to do is mix up the people because, you know, again, you don't want to get the same people talking with the same things. But if you can mix up and change it around, then that's huge value. And you said quarterly, you're doing those? Yeah, I mean, again, I'll do a couple of quarter. So get different groups. So, so yeah, it's, we try to keep it consistent. Has this become, by the way, does this have a name? Do you call it something? Nope. No, okay. Just my mastermind event. Right. Has this become like a known entity in your local area amongst agents? Yeah. So I started getting people going, hey, can I bring my team leader? Can I bring this? Can I bring that? And so what I try to do is really go, no, because what I want to do, like, so like if we've got a, a caliber, let's just color what we're saying, color what your team got three buyer agents. Like, hey, I want to send you all three of my buyer agents. I said, no, no, no, give me one, and I'm going to put one in the next one and one on the next one. And because they're all going to get something different out of it. So what then they can do is they, the three of them that get together with the team and share all the stuff that they got from it. Because if I have three of them, they're all learning the same thing. Like, let's leverage this and have them come in different ones. So yeah, I'm getting phone calls all the time going, you know, hey, I need to get this person in or I just recruited this real estate agent. I told her, you know, I told her about you, you can get you in the mastermind events. So it's, it's, it's, it's kind of taken on my own and guys, by the way, I'm not doing any of it. I'm moderating it. Like, I don't have to have all the questions. I don't have to have all the answers. I have to have the questions that don't have the answers. Right. Right. And you get the questions, like you said, during your interview process. So what happens afterwards? How do you turn this into? Is it just organic or are you a little bit more intentional about it? Yeah, it's, you know, definitely following up. So always following up and getting their, their feedback on the event, especially the people that haven't been there yet. So of course, they're all appreciative, Rick, that was great. I learned, you know, I always asked him for the key takeaways are and, you know, and then we talk about it. You know, is there a room in your arsenal for my team? And I value relationships. And I would just love a bite at the apple. And I've never, I've never gotten to know. And, but that's also saying that I've never gotten every, every real estate agent that didn't use me to use me. So, but it is one of my, the biggest ROI's with the people that are, that are leaving there that are, are utilizing our team. In terms of converting those agents to referral partners, one of your biggest projects. Okay. Yeah. And I'm assuming it sounds obvious, but just make it clear for everybody, the positioning is completely different. You know, you are not the average loan officer anymore. Right. Oh, 100%. Like it's, again, you're moving your, your relationship from casual to committed, right? But you're being seen in different, in a different way. You know, there's a bunch of tools that we, we have, that we use that, that separate us from other loan officers so that when, when the other loan officers cold calling mine, because they're, they're told to call 50 on Monday, you know, it's like, well, what, you know, what can you do? Well, the great rates of great service of your product. Well, yeah, but, but this guy over here actually adds value to my business, you know, bulletproofing that relationship. Yeah, I was curious. Then last question on this topic would be then, are you then continually, you know, trying to quote, add value help agents become better marketers, sharing resources, educate, all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, we've got a toolbox of a bunch of that stuff that, that we use, you know, one of the, one of the other powerful ways that we really cement our relationship with our real estate partners is, is a product that we became up with is called the real estate buyers playbook. Yeah. I was going to ask you about that. So let's go there. Yeah. So, you know, we knew that real estate agents didn't do two things really well, right? They didn't have a, the, a one stop shop for the whole entire process from pre approval to post closing and everything in between, right? Got a couple of pages photocopied or, you know, you know, you have maybe an infographic of, oh, here's how the process is going to work, but no real meat and potatoes of that. The second that we realized is that real estate agents did a horrible job at leveraging the buyer that they have in front of them. And what I mean by that is is, yeah, they, they might refer a loan officer, maybe the title company or attorney, maybe a home inspector. After that, it stops. And so what we did was we created the real estate buyer playbook that does have all of the information for every state, the whole process and about a 55 page workbook for every whole, for a home buyer, right? That they go through it. It's there. You know, it's, it's how they're searching for property. It's how they're, you know, writing down all their dates for all their contracts and, you know, what they're going to do at closing and what's going to happen after they own the home, like post closing stuff. So we created that. But now what I'm doing as a loan officer is I'm going out and I'm showing real estate agents how to stop looking for the fish and spend more time looking for the fisherman, right? The same thing that you and I were trained to do, right? The loan officers don't care about the buyer, go find the, the people who have the buyers. Now what we need to do is we need to treat the, train those real estate agents to do the same thing. Okay. So what we've done is as we've created the system where we go out and we show real estate agents how to create their vendor list, right? So not just the loan officer in the title company, but what about the CPA and what about the financial planner and the estate planner because she's, now you have an asset and two children, like, do you have an estate plan? What about the plumber, the contractor, the pool builder, the storage unit owner? Like what about all of those things that a buyer needs once they own a home, right? That they're just going to go online for it. But what if the real estate agent was the gatekeeper all that? Like what if they had like all of those people that in the book, in this platform, we call the real estate buyer's playbook. And so now the real estate agent goes and has a powerful conversation with the CPA and says, Hey, listen, I, you're my CPA and you're great. And I really want to grow your business, Mr. CPA. Like I meet with 20 buyers. And it's really important that I send them to a really good CPA. And all I'm looking for in return from that is for you to think of me every time you hear the word real estate. Is that something that we can commit to? I'll send you my buyers and you just think of me every time you hear that and you're going to get what? Yes, or more, sometimes more importantly, you know, you know, I'll tell you a quick story and I think people can resonate with this is I sat down with this, this agent Linda about a year and a half ago and went to the playbook with her and she was, you know, what the first person must sit down with my CPA? I've sent him 10 deals in the last five years. Great guy. Good CPA. I'm going to sit down with them and it's be good. I'll be able to move my relationship with them casual to commit it, right? Because I'm going to have these conversations with them. She sat down with them and said, Hey, you know, I've do a great job. I'd love to send you more business and I just need you to think of me every time you hear the word real estate. And he said, Ooh, you didn't, I didn't tell you my real, my wife's a real estate agent. So think about that, right? And listen, we can all, we can all relate to this, right? Because we don't have these type of conversations, right? It's like that, those 10 referrals to a CPA felt down a black hole to never be seen again. Right? Right. And so now Linda works with her top producing referral partner as a new CPA that once she uses personally, but one that's committed to growing her business. And she is able to send them so much business because of the platform. So again, backing up, I'm a loan officer. I'm bringing this system to a real estate agent because I'm the gatekeeper of it. And I'm training them on how to go out and have these great conversations with these vendors and lead with GIF. Hey, I want to grow your business, you know? And all I want you to do is think of me every time you hear the word real estate, is that something you can do? And so, man, and when you, when they have that conversation with them and they get a yes, well, now they have 20 human beings walking around their world, committed to every time they hear the word real estate, the thinking of the real estate agent, right? And listen, we've got a bunch of different ways that we get the buyers to call the vendors. So there's a process in which we get them, the CPAs phone to ring three times a month, right? But it's also getting those businesses back. So, you know, if you ever sat down with a real estate agent and they go, hey, send me a deal or, you know, I want to be one for one and you can't do that. Right. Well, you can bring them a tool, change their mindset to get off this hamster wheel around finding their next buyer, kind of going to find their next buyer. Oh, go door knock, right? Who wants to do that? Go, go, go, go, go cold call expires and fizz bows. First of all, two, the two things that people hate and despise the most is getting called unexpectedly and certainly getting the knock on the door. You know, I know my wife is doing the army crawl, thinks she's about to get murdered. So, right, it converts some stuff, right? Let me smart about it. Leverage the buyer you have sitting in front of you, right? This is leveraging 20 more times, get more business in. It's not hard, guys, it's not we're not curing cancer here. But man, if it's a cement us in, the book is something that it's all based around the real estate agent. Real estate agent customizes the book to their, you know, logo and their bio. It's all about them because we know it's always all about them. And then the loan officer and a third party co-sponsor it. So they're printed in the book on the back cover. So, you know, it's just allowing you to take a tool to a real estate agent. I have something that I will help you grow your business and it's not hard. I'm not asking you to go door knock a cold call. I'm going to, like, you have buyers and they need people after they own their own. Interesting. I love it, man. I mean, talk about a unique value adding, right? Like you said, it's, you know, we're teaching them how to fish instead of just like handing my fish, which most of them, you know, got that mindset. It's like, hey, better yet. Let me actually show you, right? Teach you. Yeah. Right. And you hear, you know, if you give them an a fish, you feed for a month. Right. You know, feed them in. Give the, you know, teach them how to fish and feed for the lifetime. So these real estate agents that are struggling with getting a consistent amount of business coming in the door, you know, they're essentially creating their own mini B&I group. But the difference here is it's people that they want to work with P&I. You can't control that. Right? Now they're creating their own sphere around them. And the loan officer is toe to toe belly to belly with them throughout the whole process and they're part of it. So do you think, I mean, do, do any of your agents need a little bit of hand holding with this and some, you know, coaching? Yeah. And I love that because I always say like, let's, let's be the first one like a CPA financial planner, right? Because for me, I want to be for that person too, especially if they're good. Yeah. So it's like, hey, let's sit down with them. Let's show them the book. It's a no brainer. We're not asking for money. We just want 50 of his business cards. And we want, we want him just to know that he's going to think about you like really around you. And maybe he might think of me too, when he hears what real estate, it's not hard. Just get a business card. Put it in there and tell your buyer about it. So, you know, as you, you know, we have the whole system where we have all the modules. We teach the loan officer how to go and sit down with the real estate agent about it. And then we teach the real estate agent how to go have good conversations with people. Right. You know, and we're leaving with you. And that's the thing. You know, if, if any of your listeners are out there, we, you know, we have an ambassador program right now with aspire marketing, which is the company that we do it, where, you know, we're, we're growing the book across the country, you know, every, every state is done a little bit differently. Right. So what we're doing is we're having, you know, having loan officers across the country reach out to us, help us with creating the book for their state. And then we're giving them some, some really big discounts and showing them, you know, how to take this to their real estate agent. So, you know, if you've got any of your listeners that are, um, certain we do, um, people are chomping at the bed. How do they learn more? Where do they go? Yeah. Buyersplaybook.com is, uh, they can get more information. There's a contact us button there, um, you know, definitely let us know you heard from this podcast, which is really great. And, um, and what we'll do is we'll talk with you about your market to what we can do to help you get in with your real estate agents and, uh, just a, we, very, very, uh, light lifting on our end, just we need a little bit of information for your state. And then we're off and running. Man, it's, uh, it's, it's pretty powerful. Yeah. Fantastic. I'm on the website right now. Buyersplaybook.com. I'll put the link in the show notes, uh, as well as links to the other things we talked about on this, this episode, like the calendly and time trade and things like that. Um, I'm even go, oh, I'll link to slide broadcast as well. And I'll even do everybody a solid and put that link to Google. You mentioned earlier about, you know, Google, how to, um, mail, merge and outlook. Yeah. I'm going to put that link in there too. Megan. Jeff, what you do for this industry, dude, is, is just huge and, um, and you're, you're providing a ton of value, um, where, you know, there's not a lot of people in your position that's doing that. So, man, I just, thank you very much for, uh, yeah, no, man, I, I appreciate you saying that. Thank you very much. And I'm, I'm truly grateful for, you know, you and what, I've said this before. I mean, what I find is that the quote top producers, there's air quotes there, um, right, they, they tend to be the people that are most willing to share and give of themselves. And so you've clearly demonstrated that on this session today, man, I can't thank you enough. Yeah, man, it's a mindset of, you know, scarcity versus abundancy. And so if everybody had that abundancy mindset, not worrying about what the guy behind you is doing, it's, uh, we'd be in a different place, man. The pie is big enough. Everybody can get their piece of the pie, man. Yeah. So, I appreciate you being here, Rick and listeners, uh, as always, thank you if you enjoyed this episode. Please let us know. Give us a little shout out, a little love out there on iTunes, Stitcher, wherever you're listening to the podcast, leave us a review, ranking thumbs up, check me out on Facebook at Mortgage Marketing Institute and, uh, 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 Mortgage MarketingInstitute.com. Hey guys, what's up real quick? You've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before and I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchase loans. 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. 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