Ep #91: How Pop-By's and Big Events Help This Top Loan Officer Close 206 Loans Special Guest: Michelle Oddo

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimper, welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. And as you may have heard on a previous episode, we've got a brand new sponsor for this show, proudly brought to you and sponsored by Mortgage Marketing Pro Membership. Who is Mortgage Marketing Pro Membership? What is Mortgage Marketing Pro Membership all about? Well, it's about you. If you're tired of all the hype, tired of all the fluff, if you want to cut through the noise about how to succeed, how to survive and thrive in the current and coming market, I've taken my years of experience since being in the Mortgage Business of 2003, me being a national sales coach and trainer for a top 10 national lender across the country, whose name you would recognize. And a collection of the best strategies, solutions from the top producers and people that I interview on this podcast that you listen to. And I've combined them all into a single place, a single source, over 10,000 people a month can't be wrong. And for a limited time, I'm inviting you, the listener, to take advantage of a very special introductory offer in becoming a Mortgage Marketing Pro member. I'm not going to give you a long winded commercial about what it's all about here. Just know that you should check it out, mortgagemarketing.pro. If you're looking to go the next level, if you want to dive deeper, and be careful, become a modern originator, be more successful in capturing and converting real estate agents without chasing, pay to play, begging. If you want to have more reliability and consistency in your income, that's what I put mortgage marketing.pro together for you. Let me be your guide. Let me help you along the way. Check it out. Check out the resources. They'll be, I think, in the show notes as well. So without further ado, let's talk about my special guest, the one, the only, the five star mortgage professional, seven years in a row, Michelle Auto, with Nova Home lending out of Denver, Colorado. Michelle is definitely under the category of rock star, superstar, top 1% mortgage originator in the country, 2017, she funded 206 units, her main source of business is real estate agents. And what we unpack on this episode is the unique things she does to stay top of mind, to work with only those agents that she enjoys working with and how she puts together different strategies to activate those relationships. You hear about guess what's back in fashion, you're going to hear about direct mail. That's right, what she calls 100 cheesy gifts, things that she sends to realtors and other referral partners, even clients, to drive business, to drive engagement, to get meetings, get appointments, and to build loyalty. Really funny, cool ideas in here. We also unpacked this idea, which I used to hear about years ago, but people have gotten away from it. I think it's coming back in fashion today more than ever, people are craving connection because they're not getting real connection online, they're craving face to face connection. So Michelle is going to dive into how she leverages big events, what do I mean by big events? Rending out a movie theater, and she'll tell you a story about how she did it with two different movies and how she has really become not only a celebrity in her local market, but again, what's this all about? It's about accelerating your personal brand, rising above the noise, creating connection and driving business your way. And so we're going to unpack a lot about this concept on how Michelle does that. And why also, she's noticing, she's been testing, asking people to come into her office for face to face meetings, to finish the loan application loan process, and what she's noticed is that when people come into the office, I know surprise, the rate shopping goes down, the conversion goes up. And to her surprise and probably to yours, you think people are, you know, the deep, the knee jerk reaction is, I'm too busy to come into the office, which she's finding it's refreshing that people do want to come into the office. So we talk about that and a lot more on today's episode. We'll put things in the show notes to Michelle's website. Once again, to the mortgage marketing.pro, limited open doors, we're shutting that down in a couple of weeks. So by the time you're listening to this, the doors might be shut already, again, it's the preliminary soft introduction for you, my VIP listeners, to get in and get after that while you can while you're getting good prices are definitely going to go up. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. And Michelle, welcome to the show. Thank you. Happy to be here. Happy to have you. Always appreciate it when a busy, productive, successful mortgage originator makes time to come and share what's working for them and their business. So I do, you know, the formal interview was separate in apart from, you know, our conversation. But I always like to get your take for the listeners because nobody wakes up and says, dog, gone it. I want to be a mortgage loaner, a regenerator. So how did you get into this business? What keeps you going? Oh gosh. Okay. Well, I got into this business in the 80s. It was 85. My dad was a mortgage broker and I lived in Florida. I graduated high school with attending college and working for dad part time, knowing I would never, ever do what he did for a living. And so many, many years later, still doing this, I just fell in love with the business. I really did. I was on the processing side originally. Left dad's business went and worked for several brokers, worked for several lenders and then kind of got into the underwriting side of the business. I was an underwriter and a rep, et cetera. And anyway, here we are, you know, many, many years later and I just really love what I do. Well, thank you for sharing that. So what about it? Do you love? You've been in it for a long time now and, you know, I'm sure you've had those moments. I'm scratching you. But what keeps going through all that? What do you really love about the business? You know, I like the complexity of it. I love that there's a creative side in that, you know, every situation is very different. I think I learned something new every day still. And I really love helping people realize their dreams because I think a lot of borrowers feel like this is going to be a complicated, stressful process, which it can be. I think if you're in the wrong hands, obviously. So I just enjoy, you know, wrapping my arms around. Your situation, helping them have clarity, give direction and coming up with solutions to maybe difficult, more difficult situations that I enjoy fixing problems and fixing, you know, difficult, loan situations, I kind of, I'm weird like that. I like really hard loans. Do you also enjoy doing, learning and constantly being challenged? Exactly. Do you enjoy doing like crosswood puzzles and all that too? Yeah. That's okay. Different kind of stuff. Yeah. You're a problem solver. That's awesome. You like to solve problems for people. And getting in a house, financing a home, using the right mortgage, the right mortgage company in person, right? People need help. Navigating that decision. Yeah. I think a lot. One of my clients said to me, a young client, one time he gives a shout, I don't even know how to shop for a mortgage. I don't know how. So I need to know about mortgages, but first I need you to tell me how to shop for a mortgage. I know that I'm doing it correctly. And I thought, wow, that's a great way to just really verbalize what people are feeling and they don't know how to even verbalize that. Interesting. Was that a first-time home buyer? He was. Yes. I don't know how to shop for a mortgage. You know, it's funny. I hear that. And part of me finds that surprising, considering the prevalence of commercials that are trying to teach people how to shop for a mortgage is to push a button. Right. Which is the best way to shop for a mortgage? Well, it's funny, you know, a discussion around that is what rocket mortgage, quick and loans has done as has probably raised the bar in terms of the expectations of the consumer experience and how, quote, easy or easier it should be. And I think, you know, those of us that are in the business are kind of trying to pivot for that. And there's more pressure in the market today. I mean, you're seeing it as well. The competitiveness, what's your visible value, how do you stand out, right? What's the value prop above just rate? Correct. Yeah. I mean, I think people do expect they would like it to be simple. And even if it is complicated, you know, we try to maybe take care of some of those things behind the scenes so that the borrower doesn't feel all of the pain of the mortgage process and just really try to do a lot for them. So they're just having to supply the very minimal, you know, required documents, if that makes sense. You know, and actually read what we get and make sure we understand it. So we're not just asking crazy questions. I think a lot of these, you know, like rocket mortgage, you know, they pose like it's going to be easy. But once the borrower gets entrenched in the loan process, they realize it's not always as easy as they thought it was going to be up front. You know, especially when you have an inexperienced person on the phone on the other end that doesn't understand what they're looking at in terms of documentation, et cetera. Sure. Well, people want it to be easy. That's for sure. You know, they've struck a great chord with the consumer marketplace out there about wanting to make the mortgage process simpler and easier. So that's a good thing for, you know, all of us need to raise our game, continuing, moving forward. I don't know. You've done that consistently throughout the years. Matter of fact, quick shout out to you. I see it on your Facebook page, just in the past couple of weeks. Once again, what is this 12, 13, 15, 16, 7 years in a row, five star mortgage professional award? Yeah. So now it's pretty, I'm pretty humbling and just something to, it's that thing you've got to keep striving to get better and just try to beat your stats, your customer satisfaction everything from year to year and just always trying to be better and get better. So I feel pretty blessed to have had such great clients and great market and good team, good company, all that. Yeah. That's really the key. Yeah, all that's important, but the reality is you've done the work put in the work. So let's roll up our sleeves then and let's get specific for the listeners who want to know. All right. So what makes Michelle tick? She conducts her business, where does it come from? How does she demonstrate visible value? And based on our last conversation, I've got some notes here. So real quickly, let's, for the listeners, tell us what your number one source of business is. Well, my number one source of business is realtors. So I definitely, you know, get the lion's share of my business through realtors. But right next to that, just kind of almost just right underneath in terms of gracious is just referral and repeat client. So huge, huge piece of my business is just my, my client, their friend, their family. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to do a little surgery here. Okay. I got my tools out. I'm going to start to do a little, a little cutting and stitching and peeling open the layers. How many, how many core realtors would you say? Oh, an anesthesia. First, please. We'll recall from that bottle of something on your end. Yeah. How many core realtors do you have that send you the bulk of the business? I would say my core is about, you know, kind of averages 20 to 25 are my core. And then there's this peripheral number, you know, probably another 20 or so that I get maybe random stuff from, you know. Right. So the 20 to 25, what does that represent roughly 70, 80% of your business? Yeah. I would say so. Depends on it. Right now, you know, we're doing more re-fi, honestly. So it kind of fluctuates, but I try to, I would say around 60 to 70 somewhere in there. All right. 60 to 70. And I don't have a rain front of me. But what your total, your units last year for 2017, 206, 206, okay, great. So that's a pretty strong healthy base of realtors. How do you find the management of that to be meaning, you know, you've got to service, service those partners, not only with delivering on closing alone on time and all that, but the other things that go into building that relationship. Do you find that to be a challenge? You know, I think it can be, depending on how you approach it, what I try to do is, I mean, what I've done strategically is build a core group of realtors that I actually really like and enjoy being with. I really found a long time ago to work with people you'd like. It's just so much more fun and it's a better business. So it's almost like my realtors are my friends as well. So it's not like I had this whole other separate piece of life that I have to also manage. It's all kind of intertwines and blends together. But yeah, for me, stuff to manage it and there are touches that go out to these realtors and all different methods, whether it's some social media, some just, you know, we call it breaking bread or, you know, seeing the whites of the eyes, just having lunch together or having coffees, things like that. Some of it's done through mail. You know, I do a lot of postcards and little gifts. They're not gifts, let's, from the rest of the standpoint, not gifts. You call them cheesy gifts. They're cheesy gifts. Yeah, just fun little things to keep us in front of the realtors, you know, and they could be bubbles and it says, you know, we're going to blow you away with our service or it could be, you know, a compass or this point you in the right direction to getting your loans put, you know, quickly just to give you little things that kind of tie back to us and just stay in front of the realtors. So we have a lot of different things I'm doing, different places we're spinning and I have help with some of those things with my team. Sure. I want to ask that. Well, let's hang out on the cheesy gifts for a moment because when we talk, you know, you mentioned you do direct mail, which I love because, you know, I think one of the keys to marketing is if you could be, go where it's not as noisy, not as crowded and let's face it, there's so much noises online. So how do you get more notice, get notice more offline, both in person and through direct mail. But I love what you said, the 100 cheesy gifts, you wrote down, I wrote down a couple of the things from our last chat, pop rocks, right, our service rocks, an elephant whistle, we're all ears, right, for your needs or whatever. What I'm curious about is are those used in marketing yourself to agents or are those used once you're in a relationship with agents to stay top of mind or both? Combination. So as tap 2025, we talked about, they're definitely in that list, maybe the 20 or so peripheral that we're getting business from, throw them in the list as well. And then in the agent that we've had a great experience with on the list side, or someone that introduced me to, or just somebody that I really want to work with, I will include in that list because I want to stay in front of that real tour in terms of just being top of mind and being clever and doing something different. So is that then part of, if you're trying to go deeper, let's say with an agent, maybe get an audience with them, you'll put them on that kind of outbound direct mail, cheesy gift drop, and follow that up with a call to try and get face to face? Yes, correct. I do that. And sometimes if it's a real tour, we really want to work with who maybe does a lot of business and they're hard to get in front of, you know, I need to do something more than that, drop something by their office, that's a little bit more, you know, more of a splash. More impactful. And do you find that that works to be able to get you appointments? Yeah, I do. Not always. Sometimes you have to do it for a long time and then sometimes it never works and you just give up, essentially after a couple of years. Just not the right person. You know, I spent so much money and time courting someone, you know, but I mean, at least you get, you know what, it creates, if nothing else, it helps build your brand. You may put a lender letter out there for a buyer and that agent, in fact, I'm under contract right now with a client of ours, who the listing agent is on the, is a recipient of my gift. And so, you know, you could, they get your lender letter and it's just, you're creating a brand. So it gives you a little more notoriety, you know, no, that's interesting, you say that. I would think that'd be an interesting thing to test out with the listing agents on the opposite side of that transaction as a way is to get an appointment once you close it. Yeah, if you like them and you want to work with them, definitely a way to try to get in front of them, for sure. Yeah. I mean, that's a great point, by the way, which a lot of people overlook, you know, A, if you like them, I'm tired of hearing loan officers say they're, you know, they're meeting with agents and they don't like the agents or they're cheesy, they're lousy, well, then don't meet with them, right? I mean, that's the whole, this is, this is a, it's, it's marketing, like you said, mailing your stuff. Does it work 100% of the time? No. I mean, what marketing does work 100% of the time, right? Not. So you got to understand you're in a business and it's a numbers game. Um, right. You have to, you know, it's like, you have to be present to win or you have to play to win all that you have to put yourself out there and take a chance and spend some money. Um, and just, and you have to pursue it. You can't do it once or twice. I mean, you have to stick with it and have a long-term game plan. And eventually you might decide this just isn't, you know, if somebody that wants to work with me or they have other, but then you might put them on a quarterly, you know, or just touch them now and then, right? Just stay in front of them. Well, there's an old saying from, uh, Tommy Hopkins, you know, your, your market till they buy or die, or they ask you to be taken off the list. So I mean, if it's a worthwhile, you know, I think about stories for you. And you know this, I bet you have a story, like all top producers do of an agent that you marketed to for, let's say, three, six, 12 months, uh, but the relationship really didn't convert and kick in until, you know, six months in, let's say, I mean, you got stories like that where it took that long to land an elephant agent. Oh, yeah. In fact, um, I'm, I'm just starting to work with one now that I met, um, through the chamber and they have it, they have a, uh, a lender that they know and love and all that and I get that. But just organically, we've become friends and Facebook friends and, um, so not sending them gifts because I knew, I already knew that wasn't, I wasn't trying to approach them from, you know, it was a different kind of relationship. But just staying in front of them, staying in front of them and creating a real friendship to a point where I got a call and they said, hey, we're going to send you a deal. We really want to try to give you a shot. So, you know, something, you have to deal out the person and it has to be authentic. I think that's the big thing, um, you know, and I always tell other, you know, loan officers at mentoring or whatever that it's mainly it has to be authentic and you really have to want to work with them because you like them and you know, it's going to be a good relationship not just because you want to make a lot of money because that's just though transparent, people don't want to work with people that just want their dollars. Exactly. And it's transparent and you're right on both ends too, like, for instance, if the agents are hitting you up to pay for Zillow leads, for example, yeah, I just did a talk at one of our offices and one of the L.O.'s asked me, do you, how many people ask you to pay for Zillow and do you do it? You know, and my answer was, and I have a theory on this and there are certain realtors that I've paid for Zillow. But if I made a new rilter and they're asking me to pay for Zillow, that's like me asking someone to marry me that doesn't even know me. Why do you want to be connected with me, tied to me, you don't even know me, you don't know how I work. Like, let's make sure we like each other, we work well together, the relationship is a good relationship, then we'll talk about going deeper with those things. Yeah, exactly. I love the response to that. Okay, cool. Let's stay on this track for a moment in terms of real estate agents because you do some other things, kind of the more big splash events throughout the year. We talked about like running a movie theater out, want to tell me briefly about that. Sure, yeah, we try to do, my team and I try to do a couple of things a year. For the purpose, well, you know, there's a multipurpose, you know, multiple reasons for doing this. One, there'll be a whole slew of people that cannot come to your event, but they still see, they get to see that you're doing it, you're still in front of them and you're marketing it. That's a benefit more than they go or not. I always invite my clients and my, and my real church. So it's a client's, slash realtor appreciation and I try to do events where they can bring their family because I think people really enjoy that. So we do a movie theater, we did a finding Dory, we did a Star Wars right around Christmas time and then we did something one year, actually when you're at Christmas, we did a Hudson Gardens where you view the lights and get a picture of Santa, hot chocolate, cookies, you know, so just any kind of an event where we get to just think our clients, get in front of them, see them face to face and, you know, just that, again, just keeping that relationship with our clients and our realtor's both. Okay, so let's dive in on the theater idea for a moment. That's one of those classic timeline, timely ideas that have been out there for a long time. And a bit away from that, unfortunately, you know, again, with this whole influx of online and digital, it's like, man, we need to get back face to face. This is, and everybody, what are you seeing? Let me just sidetracked for a moment. What the hell? I'm seeing people, well, I'm not, I'm seeing people try to outsource and automate relationships and connect with people as a loan officer. Are you seeing that at all? Like, hey, let me just, can I just run a Facebook ad? I'd never want to have to be with realtor's again, do you see that? Yeah. I mean, I think it's okay to mix some of that in there because you can't do everything and be, you know, be, because we do loans. Like I don't do, I'm not a marketing guru, I'm a mortgage lender. That's what I'm really good at, but we have to market to be relevant and to get business. So I think it's okay to outsource some of it and I think we all do that, but you're right. But, you know, that's like trying to date somebody on text, right? Like, you have to, you know, like, like my son, you know, they want to do everything on text, it's like, listen, you have to have, that's fine for a hook, that's fine to get someone's attention, but you have to be a real person. You can't just, you know, there's a wizard behind that curtain, right? Like, they have to know who the real person is. They have to get to know you and like you for that to be a real relationship. And so, you know, yeah, you can outsource a little bit of Facebook stuff, but I think it looks really cheesy and it's not authentic when you're not doing it. So if you want to mix some of that in with your own stuff, I think that works okay. Absolutely. Well said. Okay, thank you. We're back on track now. So a couple more details about the movie theater situation. And these are questions coming to me, coming to you from real loan officers asking this from this idea in the past. But one, what day and time of the week, you typically book that, you know, because the big question is like, oh my God, how are they going to like rent that whole theater of me? Yeah. So both of the, the two times I've done it most recently that were the most successful. We did a Saturday morning. And actually, finding Dory, the theater we use, let us do like their, Matt and A. So it was like the 10, 30, 11-ish, I think, so we even got a little bit just count price. The Star Wars theater, when we did that one, we didn't get the Matt and A. Price, but I want to say it was like 11, 30. So it was kind of a morning, Saturday morning, that was your question, right? Yeah. Saturday morning. Well, I'm wondering. So when you make that call to the theater, I mean, you know, you're basically guaranteeing they're going to fill the theater, right? Yeah, you do, you have to commit. So the very first time I did this, I was nervous to commit to the whole theater. So I did it with another loan officer at my company. And that way we shared the cost and plus it's sometimes fun just to do something like that with someone. You know, you don't feel like you're out there by yourself. And so he and I did it together. We rented the theater. We committed to X amount of tickets. And just aside know, some people fill these things to the, you know, they sell it. They basically get X amount of seats. And then they take an RSVP from exactly those amount of seats, which keep in mind, if you do that, you're going to have clients in the front row, right? So we didn't do that. We kind of sold out, which, you know, I see sell loosely because they're not paying for it. But I took RSVPs and I left about two rows open. So that was a cost, you know, that we absorb, but I guess the experience. You purposely left it for you purposely left the first two rows open. We did it just because I thought, you know, would not be like, you don't want your best realtor or favorite client in the front row going, well, this kind of sucks, right? So that's what we did. So, you know, when you, when you figure out your cost, you may or may not want to do that. That's up to you or put all your friends and family in the front for something. You know what? Don't let everybody sit down and then put your mom and your brother and sister in the front row. Yeah. Exactly. That's right. Throw them up there. But yeah, that's what we did. And then you know what? And it is expensive. Again, you may want to pay for food and you may not. That's your choice. Some of the theaters, like what we've done is they have a package where you can commit to X amount of, you know, like one large popcorn and two small drinks per family or something like that or kid packs, you know, X amount of kid packs. So that's what what I've always done is kind of figure out how many, you know, and then we prepay and we give them a ticket for it and they go up to the concession and get it. The last time we did it, they just kept a tally of who got what, but we gave them kind of a, they could only get certain things like popcorn and the drink or a kid's pack. Anything about that. So you may or may not want to do food. What's that? Anything above your commitment to them, they pay for themselves. It's like it's like a drink ticket. First two free, whatever. You get your bucket, your drink. That's a work. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. If you want the, if you want the friggin' jujubes, hey, that's on you. Yeah. If you want the extra large slurpee, go for it, but we're not doing that. Yeah. You guys saw Drake. You want to exercise it? You could pay the difference. But yeah. And I think people loved it. I mean, it's so fun because then what they do is they post it and they tag you and they hashtag it and their friends see it and I mean, who doesn't want to see themselves, you know, marketed everybody else organically. That's great. It's fun. Okay. So this is truth and mortgage marketing here. And you give us prices vary around the country, but let's just assume you split that with the L.O. 50, 50. And of course, you can get other people like title, escrow, whatever. But roughly, you know, what would you, what, what is the investment on that roughly? Ballpark. Um, so again, the last, the Timos recent, for the last two years that I've done this, it cost me about including food. And I hope I'm not getting this strong because I probably purposely have forgotten this number because I'm not sure what you remember. But I want to say it was about 3500 bucks for the theater and the food. Now I get a little bit of a marketing match with my company, but I want to say it cost me about three ish thousand dollars, which you're having, you know, look at how many people you're entertaining, that's how many, a couple hundred people, right? Yeah, yeah, I did, um, I want to say the theater we did, one of them was 300 ish, second one was probably about the same, yeah, yeah, something like that 200, but again, I split the first one with, with, with a guy, right, and the second one, let me clarify, the 3500 was your half or was your total net? Well, so again, my company does a marketing match, so I get, they, they pay a third, right? And so the first time around, um, it probably cost us 3,000 each and then we got a marketing match, maybe it cost me two, right? So the second time around, I did it myself and this is in the last two years and I did a little bit smaller theater since I was doing it myself. And then with my third paid by the company and I paid my two thirds, it's still probably cost me about 3,500,000. Yeah, no, okay, thank you for sharing all that. That makes sense. I think that's right, I have to do the map, but it's about, it's something like that. Yeah, no, no, that, that makes sense. Of course, it depends on the size of the theater and where you're at and all that stuff in the country. Right. Okay, now here, here's the really, the toughest question of all so far, which is, you know, the yellow cap is on. Okay. Well, can you, can you identify business that came as a result of that? Yeah, because the last theater, when I did the Star Wars event, one of my clients brought their parents and I, so I met the dad and he's like, hey, Michelle, we're going to call you, you think, okay, sure. And I'm sure I've gotten more than just this out of that event, right? But I know specifically like, because this one just closed, we got a reverse mortgage out of it. That's a pretty nice commission. So that, you know, that worked out well. And I know I, I picked up an extra realtor out of that event and I got one of my realtors to defy, no, which he've done it anyway. Who knows? That's the hard part with some of this marketing objective. You don't really know like what I've gotten that business with or without doing that, maybe. But I know that the scoreboard doesn't lie and I've been the number one L.O. at Nova the last four years in a row in our region in Colorado. So you have to think like if things are working, don't, if they're not broke, don't fix them. So I just keep doing what I'm doing because it seems to work well. And part of the, you know, I tried to tie it straight to it, but what was that? No, I know. That's why I prefaced it by saying this is a really difficult question because you can't necessarily track not only just the direct deals, but also the continued loyalty and referrals that we're already coming, but just allowing those to continue to come because of the investment you've made in those relationships. Right. And I know that I have a really high repeat and referral percentage of business as I told you and I know it's high compared to the, to the industry. And I don't, and I think most of that's very organic, just through events like that, mailings, you know, versus like me picking up the phone and dialing for dollars. So I know that that stuff does pay off. Yeah. It's an incredible branding event as well in terms of view, right, planning yourself top of mind with upwards of a couple hundred people, agents, past clients, you know, other people that maybe haven't worked with yet. So again, it's the ripple effect that you can't directly measure. It's like a, it's just really fun. Yeah. Have your own movie theater. Exactly. For yourself and all your favorite, you know, people, it's super fun. Like, that's just a cool thing to do. So why not? Yes. Yes. Now, when you're doing that, do you kick off the movie and like thank everybody for coming or how do you handle that, you know, people coming in and before the movie starts? Yeah. So next time I'm going to do it different. The last events that we've done, we have a table in the front. They have to come and get their ticket from us. And we, you know, and that's our chance to think of. And you know, it's just kind of a fun time, they're just, hey, oh, is this your sign? That's your mom, you know, whoever, right? You brought your grandkids. Oh, that's awesome. You know, and then so you kind of get to see them on their way in and maybe you don't see everyone because it's sometimes just a line and I usually have like a table set up with my team and even have my husband there helping and whatnot. But, you know, you get to see pretty much everyone. But I know that you can't stay in front of the theater and think everybody up front and I haven't done that because I'm out there doing the ticket thing, but I think next time I might do it that way. We'll see. It's so far that's the way I've done it. It's been pretty cool. Do you have a movie that you're eyeballing, perhaps, is the next one out to do? No, but that's what I've got to start working on because I'd like to do it kind of around the Christmas season. So I need to get busy. Yeah. Start keeping. I'm going to hang up with you. That's my next project. What's Hollywood going to release? I don't know. I'm going to look. And then, truthfully, if there isn't a good movie, you know, if there's not something I like, we'll just pick a different time of year. It's okay. But yeah, you're right. I mean, I really try to pick the best. I like to take a movie versus a time of year per se. I mean, summer's great, but this past summer, it didn't work out because we were traveling when the great movies were coming out and when we were here, the movie that we're out weren't that good. Yeah. I don't want to leave the scene of this idea of getting active and involved in a community and leveraging events like this, because you also pointed out, let's make sure we don't forget that there's a lot of other things you can do. Like you mentioned, Santa showing up in the Hudson Gardens, you know, and having Santa come out and hot chocolate. And as a matter of fact, down the street from my house where I used to live, we had a realtor there. We have this little grassy, noelle park with a slide and it's like the local park where everybody's got these, right, where the slides are and the kids go to play. And Santa comes out every year, well, guess who's sponsoring that, the real estate agent and the loan officer. So it's like, how can you get in front of your target market, your local community? That's one idea. How about pumpkin patches, right? Maybe you could sponsor a weekend or a day at a pumpkin patch, you know, and get your branding and exposure and all that kind of stuff out there. And while I'm at it, one last crazy idea, a few dog lovers, doggie photo day in the park. Okay. Yeah. Our company is doing something kind of kooky. I guess we're all buying these little doggy hanker chips that say no bottom and then we're going to give it and then we're everybody's going to come and get their family picture with their favorite furry child and put the little hanker chips on and say, I mean, this is, and we're going to post them and so this will be, but that's actually a big like Nova thing, not just the auto group, but yeah, anything like that, you can do an Easter I can't, you know, and have a pancake breakfast, have a pancake.com. You can do October fast, you can do, and there's millions of things you can do, you know, race car day at the end of your speedway, you can do, there's so many different fun events. One of the guys in our company does a habitat for humanity thing and they have, they make gingerbread houses. So the clients and the realtors come and they make gingerbread houses and then they bring a toy, you know, for that, and it's just like kind of a whole feel good event, but, you know, yeah. That's awesome. Great ideas. It brings to mind that saying that people forget what you said, they, they, what they remember is how you made them feel. And so that's a great opportunity for these types of events. Like you said, people are smiling, they're having a great time and it's, it's that connection so that when you next come up on their news feed and Facebook or they get your gift or they're your call or they're thinking, oh my God, you know, Susie over here, she just mentioned she's thinking about buying, you know, who I got to call Michelle. We just had the movie. We just had Santa show up. You got to call Michelle. Yeah. I just had one of my friends, one of my clients, such friends posted a, one of my postcards which had all the pumpkin patches on there and she just put it on Facebook. I love that you do this, Michelle, you know, wait, I don't get one of those because you're not my client. You're my client. You know, anyway. Yeah. So, so listeners, you've got ideas now to take advantage of in the fall, happening. There's lots of other events in your local area. Just get involved. You want, you're looking for ways to get, you know, grow your presence online on social media, get involved in what's already happening in your local community. Grab a camera, take some photos, take some video and freaking talk it up. That's it. It's that simple. Yeah. All right. So, you mentioned the other biggest source of business for you was past client slash referrals. That's a big one for a lot of people. Most people drop the ball, unfortunately, on that. How did you get so smart and to realize you could build a really awesome business use, if you, if you keep your database intact and communicate with it? You know, I was in a networking group and this goes back maybe, I don't know, many years ago, maybe it was 12 years ago, something like that. And one of the gals in our group was kind of a marketing guru that was her thing and she did this presentation on, you know, how many times you have to get in front of somebody that you don't know before they'll use you. But yet, if you have clients you've already worked with, and they know and like and trust you, right, and you market them, it doesn't take, it's, you don't need as many touches, right? And that it's much more cost efficient to just market your own people versus trying to market like farm and neighborhood. And she had all these statistics and it just really hit home with me. I thought, wow, I've got all these clients. I've done business with and I'm trying to market new clients. Why would I do that? Market the clients you've already got, they already know you. And I started doing it kind of a little bit out of time and I just really started seeing the effect and then just went deeper with that. And you know, and her presentation was much more, you know, in depth than what I'm telling you, but it really, it kind of smacked me right in the forehead like I need to be doing this. And actually one of our branch managers met with me, I guess six months ago, just to kind of ask, what do you do? How do you do it? You know, what advice do you have for me? And that was my first question. What are you doing with your existing database? And he's like, not much. And two months later, he called me, he said, Michelle, I have four refides going, thank you so much. He's like, it's not that hard. I don't know why I didn't think of it, but what a great idea. So what do you do then to stay top of mind with your past database? So I do postcards about every six weeks, summer clever, summer, you know, name specific, summer, just what's going on in the neighborhood. We do emails, we do videos, we do events, and we do some outbound calling sometimes, not a lot. But if there's something going on, you know, pause on that for a second when you say outbound calling sometimes. So are you structuring annual reviews, for example? We do that annual reviews, yes, I also have a program called HomeBat, so if I see somebody is in there quite a bit, looking at what's going on, you know, I'll call out to them to say, hey, I see your, you know, checking out what an investment property might look like or, you know, and then also just I have certain clients that I keep on a list in terms of I know what they're looking for and it didn't work today. But when rates get to a certain point or whatever it may be, when equity gets to a certain point, we need to reach out, so just kind of a separate little ongoing list of who I need to be reaching, circling back with. Birthdays, we do birthday stuff, we do, I do it like that though, how do you, you know what I mean? You must have a CRM that you're using. I have Django, we also have our company CRM, which does some of this for me as well, it's kind of a set it and forget it. And then I even use Outlook, I mean, I do a combination, so I don't have a magic formula for this, but there's certain things I just know, hey, I got to call this guy back in three months and I put him on Outlook. But don't forget, regardless, and yeah, that's what I do. Yeah, so you're staying pro in terms of a given week, are you, are you a time blocker? Do you structure your day? I am. I am. And it doesn't always work, you know, sometimes it gets blown out of the water. So I don't get too freaked out if I can't stay right to it, you know, to the minute, but you have to have some sort of a framework of what you're going to do or just kind of flounder. Yeah. Yeah. So in a given week, you have X amount of time devoted towards past client activities. I do. I have, I would say at least two hours a day, a few days a week, so probably six or between six to eight hours. Six to eight hours a week focused on past client activation. Which could also be realtor, that could be both. It just depends on what I've got going on in my database. But yes. Explain what you mean, how it could be both. Well, when I say six to eight hours, so I have obviously this realtor, I have a separate realtor list of who I'm needing to touch throughout the week. But mainly it's past clients, but again, based on the database, what's going on in the market and how much activity, you know, I might have that might be all clients that week or it might be light and so I'll fill it in with making some realtor calls. I see. And these are realtor that maybe you want to bring closer into the fold. Correct. Okay. So set up coffee meetings or whatever. Correct. Okay. Yes. Wow. And so how many speaking of realtor's is back there for a second. How much FaceTime use and week to week with realtor's in terms of like hours, you know, or meetings? Let's just then say it that way. Meeting face to face. Yeah. Probably four hours, so a few lunches, a coffee. It could be six. Sometimes it's a concert or something fun and that's going to be four hours right there. But, you know, but like we took one of my realtor's to the Racky's game last couple weeks ago or things like that, you know, so it kind of fluctuates. But maybe on average, probably I guess maybe four six hours or something like that. But the thing that I want to hit home for you listeners right now is that Michelle is clearly very intentional with her time. Like you said, you're not, you don't have a lot of white space I'm assuming on your calendar. What do you do? It's by design. Absolutely. That's correct. Not enough. I need more meantime, but it doesn't always work out, so what do they say you can rest when you die? No. All right. I'm curious then for someone who's as well established as yourself. Are you doing the whole texting, hey, I'm available weekend. Are you 24 seven available? How do you structure that? Yeah, that's a tough question because I am pretty available. And I'm not telling, I don't like to tell people you need to be available 24 seven if you want to build your business. I don't like telling people that. But honestly, I am pretty available and I don't mind it, so it doesn't feel like work to me. So that's hard because I always think I'm telling people you need to be available all the time, right? But I do feel like there are definite statistics if you don't respond within the first five to fifteen minutes, your closure ratio diminishes drastically. So for new stuff, I definitely try to answer the phone. People looking at properties that need updated lender letters, I'm always available. I do have some systems in place where my good rultures can make those changes without having to get me for every little thing. And I have a team, my team helps. I have two loan officer associates that help, but I would say I'm pretty available, honestly. And if my clients call or text me at night or on a weekend, I do respond. But I don't look at it, I don't know, it's weird. Again, I always, I think you can look at it like, oh, I'm being bothered or you could have the mindset of, this is an opportunity. Why would I not pick up a dollar? You know what I mean? If someone trying to get me to give me money and to create a relationship, but for me, it doesn't feel like work always. I don't meet, typically I won't meet with a client at night or on the weekend for a new loan application or anything like that, unless it's the only time they can meet and we have to meet in person, which is very rare. Are you trying to get people to meet face to face? This is a new thing for me. I have been very highly upload, like to do it over the phone, do it on all that. A lot of us on the phone, I'm not necessarily just online, but not necessarily face to face up until the last probably four to five months. We've been testing more face to face where they're bringing their documents in and I'm noticing a lot less shopping when I do that. Interesting. A great conversion. Higher, because it's all about trust and visible value and you're going to get a lot more of that face to face, for sure. Yeah, I mean, you get their commitment to come in. They go through the, you know, so it's like a pre approved them over the phone or pre quality, let's say, and they're going to bring their docs in just that face to face kind of seals the deal and it stops the shopping most of the time. Do you have any type of an online app? I do. I mean, it's just through my website and it links to encompass. Oh, I see. Are you trying to drive that like as a first step before getting face to face? Yeah. Well, it's over the phone is my first choice to take their app. Okay. If that doesn't work, I'll send them to the website and then still get on the phone with them to fill in holes and communicate about what they want to do. And then now it's a deal. Let's bring your docs in. If you can come in, that would be great. If you can only upload, we're not going to not take them, but if you can come in, we really prefer that. And I've amazed at how many people that I used to think, oh, they don't want to come in. They're so happy. Oh, yeah. Well, come in. That'd be great. Really? Okay. Well, come on. I was just kidding. I didn't know you'd really want to come in. You know, so all of a sudden, all these people want to come in. Damn it. They said yes. Right. Cash. Got to fit that in the schedule. Exactly. But that's where my team comes in too because they can meet with the client and I can come in and say hi and shake their hand and, you know, all that. And then my, my L.O.A.s can go through the docs with them. Yeah. And that's a lot. I guess I wanted to close out on that note in terms of what is your process for when they do come in. How do you structure that meaning? Are you really trying to create that like five-star experience? You know what I mean? They got water. They've got like, you know, hey, you know what I'm saying? You really set up that kind of rhythm. Cash. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I like the commander. We have a very nice office. So it's definitely nice to have them come in and see this is a real brick-and-mortar company, you know, and it's a nice local office if you get a coffee or water, whatever they'd like. They're brought to the conference room or to my office depending on how many people, you know, if kids and if they simply need more space, I do have around, you know, table chairs in my office just the time we do that and we bring them in and then usually I'll meet with them for a few minutes, five, ten minutes, go through, just kind of getting reacquainted with what they're doing and the plan and the timeline and okay, so you've got your documents great. Okay. I'd love for you to meet Carla or Shannon, whoever I have them set up to meet with and then Carla or Shannon will take them to their office and go through all their documents and spend really the bulk of the time with them and I'll come in and say, you know, goodbye and thank you and walk into the elevator and all of that or if I have a closing or somewhere I need to go, I'll just, you know, let me say my goodbye at that point, but thank them for coming in and, you know, just excited to get you, you know, to that next step. So it's kind of like the doctor's office or that you've got the person who comes in and takes your vitals and we haven't heard all that stuff and then the Michelle, the doctor's going to come in and see you and give you the prescription. Exactly. I mean, I'm not. Yeah. I'm stripping it down. Yeah. Well, for the most part, right. I feel like I see more a little more time just because let's say it's a complicated, you know, like I had a guy who, you know, they're going to vacate their home. We're doing a line of credit, they're going to buy a new home, we're doing a second over there. Then he's going to, you know, after they close, he's going to do a recast on the loan and should we do this? Should we, you know, if he needs some time with me to get a game plan together, I don't want Carla having to do that, you know, my team doing that. That's really me, but I want my team going through his documents with them. Who blocks the loan? Me. Okay. And then what's your name? Sometimes it could be the team, actually, that's not true. If I start that loan, I lock it. If Shannon starts the loan, she'll lock it. So there are loans that just, I don't necessarily touch just because they came in. Shannon started it or Carla started it and they take it through. And I only step in if there's a problem, but the bulk of them go through me. Yeah. And then are you, who's making those milestone touch points, is it, I know you've got the kind of the automated system where there's some milestone updates like appraisal, right, approval, whatever, but what does your call cadence look like as you go through that loan process to close? So under contract, my, you know, I obviously send them typically an email sometimes the phone call just dependent. They need to talk to me about something. I do call for the lock. We do the lock. And so we call it the lock talk. And then that file kind of goes from my, it's usually with Carla, who's our loan coordinator, and she will take it from there. And then the processor takes it from the point of processor gets it. And then milestones would be, I would step in with either we have, you know, they sent us something that wasn't what they told us and now we kind of have to restructure or great news. You know, we just got your file out of, out of underwriting, everything's great. So I'll do a couple of touches throughout the file. But my team is also doing it, they're getting over communicated to you because they've got me and the team. That makes sense. Yeah. Same with the realtors as well over communicating. And the realtors. Yeah. Very good, very good. You know, to close out on this, I want to point out something you said at the beginning in regards to face to face and having people come in. A one is what I heard you say is it's increased your, your conversion or your stick rate less shopping. So that's a key point there, people. Number one is Michelle knows her numbers. She tracks and measures that. You need to know yours as well, what your conversion rate. Number two is what I really like that you said was, you as well as many of us have this mindset of like, oh, well, people are too busy. I don't really want to come in, but, but you found the opposite to be true in most of the, not 100% but in a large percentage of the cases. They want that. And. They really do. Which surprised me. Right. And I think it surprises everybody. And my, my, my recommendation would be test it out, test it out, have a good reason, right? Don't you say, oh, yeah, you got to get me. It's like, you know, provide some context around it. But I think, you know, we are so conditioned to believe that everybody is, yes, we are busy. Again, back to my point about like technology, trying to displace connection and relationships. People are craving that, right? And if you want to increase your conversion ratio, if you want to get shopped, the last get in front of more people and stop buying into some of these, I'm going on a rant here Michelle. Stop buying into these people that are pitching you of like, you know, you can do this, you can do this business 100% remotely. You can. That's a transactional business. And you are going to be subject to the fluctuations of the market and interest rate much more so than if you build a relationship business and you're building, you're creating value because if it's so easy, then, then it's a commodity, you know, it's like buying shoes on mine. And why do I need it? But if you, right, why do I need you and why are you worth more and not that our price is always more, but there are times, you know, where you're in that bidding war or whatever, or you know, you're in that price war and it's like, if you can create value and they can come in and you're directing them and you're providing amortization pedals and you're really, you know, taking them under your wing and looking at this loan as though it were your own. You know, people really appreciate that you care about that. It makes the difference. Yep. Yep. That's going to be the visible difference moving forward is those who are true trusted advisors versus just app takers. This is like we said, I mean, that's why do you think the popularity of things like rocket and all this kind of stuff and other people come, you know, Amazon becoming a more, right? Because that's the perception and there's a percentage of the market that that fits for out there who just want the, hey, you know, the automated rate quote, but that's not everybody. And so you got to be clear on who your market is. Yeah, I guess the statistic I just heard, I don't know if this is true. So do your research people. But I heard 10% of the population will go with the lowest rate no matter what and they just don't care. That's a really small percentage. Yeah. The bulk of the population will go with who they trust and feel, you know, they feel the most comfortable with. Yep. And then there's like another 10% that just go with the highest price because I think it's going to be the best. So really what, you know, if you get the 90% and forget the 10 that are just shopping, you no matter what, that's a pretty good, you know, you got a pretty good market there to pick from. Absolutely. Absolutely. Love it. Love it. Listen, we are out of time and I know you're busy. You got to go get, get after some business. So I just want to say thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. Oh, thanks for having me. This was fun. I appreciate it. I hope somebody gets something. One good nugget out of it. That'd be great. And by the way, with your permission, if anybody wants to reach out to you, I'll put a link to what your website, the show notes. Is that work? That'd be great. Sure. All right. We'll do. I put my phone number. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your personal mobile number and address and all this stuff. So we can send you 100 cheeky gifts. So short. No. All right. Well, thanks again for the time and listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you like this episode, hey, let us know. Leave us some love out on the inner webs. Wherever you're listening, iTunes, blogs, Stitcher, Google Play. I don't know. One of those podcast platforms. We appreciate you so much. So thanks for tuning in to this episode. We'll see you on the next one. 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