Ep #92: How to Fire Bad Agents, Rebuild and Become the #1 Purchase Lender in Illinois

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, thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. If I told you how much I appreciate you, if you're a loyal listener of the podcast, I just want to say thank you, I appreciate you, and if you're new, well welcome. We have got a bunch of great episodes lined up for you and remember you can always go back into the podcast on the website on iTunes and dive into some of that content. If you're getting value from the podcast, would you do me a favor? Would you mind taking about, I don't know, 120 seconds out of your busy day and just leave us a quick little review online iTunes on our Facebook page? Or if you'd like to leave that review, it doesn't matter, wherever you're listening to this, if you're listening in your podcast app, maybe you can open up that up and just give us a quick shout out, a little five star ranking. Why? Because that helps us reach more people, more mortgage professionals to make a positive impact in their life. And of course, look, if you want to get noticed, you got to be top of mind and the more positive reviews, we get the better ranking and exposure we'll get on the inner web. So I just want to take a moment and ask you if you get value, that's one way you can thank me for and give back to us. Secondly, real quick, this podcast episode is brought to you by none other than the mortgage marketing pro membership, what is mortgage marketing pro all about? Well, hey, you can go check it out yourself at mortgagemarketing.pro. But if you are looking for that single destination, that one place, that one stop shop, that will help you get more agent referrals, grow your business and make more money. Finally, everything you need to get maximum agent referrals, build your online brand and capture consumer direct business, mortgage marketing pro is my baby, my brainchild, my labor of love that's been in the works for a number of years, actually, to be honest with you. And what it'll help you do is succeed in today's market, how, by being more successful and getting leads in referrals from real estate agents, purchase loans, by implementing systems and processes that help you demonstrate your visible value with scripting and sales processes that deliver a five-star client experience, a referral partner experience, help you increase your conversion ratios and help you build a personal brand online because let's face it, the currency of trust today is your online brand and building a personal brand that demonstrates you as credible and authority and having an online presence. I've got to tell you, many of you listening to this right now don't have a strong online presence. What are you waiting for, okay? Don't fall behind the times, right? Because people are Googling you, searching you, even when you get a referral from a real estate agent, they're going to check you out and see what you look like online. We can help you with that over at the mortgage marketing pro membership. So if you want to get more agent referrals and increase your sales and get consumer direct business, check it out at mortgagemarketing.pro. All right, so my special guest for this week is the legendary Sam Sharp, senior vice president of mortgage lending at guaranteed rate. Sam is just an all-around rock star stud. We've got an incredible story about how he's reinvented himself more than once as a mortgage loan originator and we've just unpacked, you know, just have a real honest, you know, transparent conversation about his number one source of business and, you know, Sam is somebody who's last month, so let's see, you're listening to this, where are we probably listening to this in October of 2018? So I believe it was probably August of 2018, could be September. But anyway, every single month Sam does over 50 closes over 50 transactions. I believe last month it was 59 transactions. He is the only originator on his team. He does have a support team, right? A staff to support him in that volume. And we'll talk a little bit about scaling to build a team. But what we're really going to unpack is how back in 2008, think about this, 2008, and if any of you were around then, you recall, wasn't the best time in the mortgage industry in 2008, right? The meltdown was just getting underway, yet Sam still did $82 million in production in 2008. But another thing he did was he fired a majority of agents that he worked with. Why? Because they didn't appreciate him and the value proposition that he was bringing to the table. So essentially, Sam set a goal. His goal was to meet, over the course of 12 months, have a face-to-face meeting with 365 agents. And what you'll hear is Sam tells the story of the process that he put together to make that happen. When he got to number 248, he was already so busy he had to stop. He had to turn it off, because he had so much business coming in. And Sam's built up quite the strong foundation, quite their business for himself in terms of transactions, volume, as you can hear. His goal, by the way, is to get to 100 purchase close loans per month. So we're going to talk about agents being a primary source of his business. How does he promote market himself to agents? Guess what? He does educational events and classes. You know, that's near and dear to me. It's something we provide in the mortgage marketing program membership turnkey done for you classes. So here's the thing, guys, Sam and I just talk about, look, there's a lot of bright shiny objects and distractions out there, and you'll hear Sam kind of reveal his process for identifying where business comes from, how to know where to double down on your investment of time and efforts in terms of building your business and attracting referrals. So look, Sam's on a tear, man, the guys are rock star stud, okay? Over a billion dollars in loan origination. We talk about tracking. We talk about knowing your numbers. We talk about the future with digital marketing technology, what Sam's getting into in the future in terms of online platforms and so forth. But again, this is a, it's a coaching session on how to build a strong referral base, largely from real estate agents. And I know you're going to like this episode. And if you do, once again, please just let us know and give us a shout out. Remember to go check out our Facebook page at mortgage marketing institute and enjoy this episode with Sam Sharp. Sam, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Happy to have you here. So, you know, it's funny when we last talked, listeners, this is a little inside look into how to prepare for a podcast. So Sam and I, you and I talked a couple of weeks ago and took some notes. And one of the things that really stands out for me was what you shared about when you first, you made a decision, you were going to meet with a certain amount of agents over the course of 12 months and then something happened. I want to start there. Tell me that story again. How did you come up with that goal? Why? And then what happened as you, you know, kind of got made way through? Sure. I mean, I basically, I figured that I would set my size on, you know, you have to set your goal somewhere, right? But I just picked a very easy number of 365 agents given the idea that that would be one a day for a full calendar year. And it didn't necessarily have to be once a day because obviously that would be difficult to give them holidays and things of that nature. But the idea was just to set my goal as what I felt to be a realistic number and something that was attainable and then any combination I could reach that goal. So if I met with 10 people on a day, that would obviously get me that much closer to the goal. I had moved from another organization I was with, I'm with Jared, Jared, to great town, and they're for about 10 years now. And I had run into some issues with another company that I was working with. They were having problems getting my deal close, basically, we were running high volume and they just weren't cutting it. So I had to make them move, unfortunately, or well, fortunately, now I stay, but at the time I wasn't too happy. And my business, as a lot of people will say right now, my business right now is primarily offered to business. It always has been, this is something that I focused on from the beginning. Well, when I had moved companies, part of the issue that I went into is that my business had been tarnished a little bit because there was, you know, our inability to close on some of these transactions in a timely manner or at all for that matter, really put the strain on some existing relationships and even ruins some other relationships, even long to long-standing relationships that I had previously established. So when I made the move over to the company I'm with now, that's where I felt the need to somewhat reinvent myself. I was motivated. I said, listen, I've got to get out there. I've got to rebuild. This is something that is important as far as looking to attain the level of success that I wanted to see. So I set that, you know, basically, it's an arbitrary number of 365 agents. And as I mentioned when we were talking before, I got up to 248 is the magic number. By the time I reached my 248th meeting, I had no more capacity. At that point in time, it worked, to rise and rise. It was funny. A lot of times people think there's some secret out there, but really it's all about putting it out there and hard work and it worked and generated a substantial amount of business to where I had to kind of band down the hatchet to make sure that we were prepared to handle that type of influx. So when you decided to do that, make that, that pivot, you know, you switch companies, went to a G-Rade where you're at now, this is about 10 years ago. If I'm correct, weren't you at that level already, like, over 50 million, like closer to 80 million? Oh, yeah. When I had left, when I had left my company, I went to G-Rade in 2009, June of 2009. When I went to G-Rade, I had somebody, it was 70, my memory, was 72 or 79 million dollars purchase business already closed that year. It was not even halfway through the year. We were, I had relationships being destroyed and I was still establishing a fair amount and keep in mind, 2008, that the year that a lot of people got out of the business because it was very difficult. I did over 80 million dollars in purchase business in 2008, it was one of my better years and led to that momentum, that even though it was being limited from the company's performance that I was with at the time, there was still that momentum. So, yeah, I mean, I was accustomed to doing a lot of business. I just, you know, when I started at G-Rade, it was summer of 2009 and after my first month there, I was looking at the leader board. So to speak, and we had guys there that were closed in 90, 96, 100 units a month. And when I saw that, you know, it just, my mouth watered a little bit, the competitive appetite kicked up and said, cool, I see what I have to do here. So that was my motivation. So, how many years had you been originating by the time you got to that point where you shifted over to G-Rade, what year did you start? Let's see, so I've been about 10, that was started in going into the end of 2001, going to 2002. So I'd had been originating for seven years or so, six, seven years, seven years. Right, well, you know, I'm no good with numbers. I love it, love it, that's why we have software. What I'm trying to kind of unpack here for the listeners is that, you know, you did, I mean, you were on pace already to do, you know, 80 million roughly, let's say, in 2008, yeah, a tough year, very tough year. What stands out for me about that is it would seem to me that a lot of loan officers, when they get to a certain level of success or maybe they reach a certain amount of fatigue and working with agents or whatnot, right, they're looking for that alternate thing. And what you decided to do was say, no, no, I'm going to go double down and meet 365 agents in 12 months. I'm curious why you went that route. I mean, what do you recognize about that as a channel, you know, in terms of a source of purchase business? And I don't know if you'd feel differently about that today if you had to do it differently, but I know there's a lot of info, a lot of stuff in that question, but if you want to try and answer that. There's definitely a couple of different elements to that. And, you know, the number one thing, I think that I look at, and I would feel exactly the same way about it today as I did then. And it's that, you know, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. There's a situation where so many people are looking for the quick fix, the secret to, you know, generating tons of business, and how do I do this? But I mean, this industry has, you know, before me, during me, and long after my, you know, what I do in this industry, there's so many people that will follow the same steps that we've taken to generate business. And that's those relationships, real estate agents tend to interact with a lot more empires than, you know, than we do with more officers. So I just knew there was no need to try and break the mold. I had to move quick. And because I did, I did see things starting to decline. And I had to, I didn't have this pressure to where I wanted to move quickly. So for me, it was a matter of, okay, well, where am I at now? What do I know works? And how do I, how do I push that? I knew that those agent meetings would yield results, and that they would also motivate me. Because I think that the one, you know, a body and motion stays in motion. Those wonderful little cliches you throw out there. I was motivated. I was out there, you know, you get dressed up, you go out, you have the meeting, you have a good meeting, your, your pants are ready. You can make that next sales call that much better. You're in a better position. And by continuing that forward momentum on a daily basis, it just makes things grow. And that's something that I've always seen in my career. And honestly, I'm doing that right now. I'm right, I just started, you and I talked a little bit about this not just going to change or nothing, but, you know, I went from that many agents to several years ago, firing almost all of my agents and working with about eight of them. And, and right now, I'm in a position where I'm actually ramping up and doing the exact, well, a different model, but basically the same thing. I'm starting a tremendous amount of interaction with new agents and other existing agents in the field and looking to go through because something that I saw, and this would be another facet to the, or kind of another variable behind the initial question. And that's something that I saw then that I expect to see coming up in the very not so distant future was that there were a lot of people struggling in our industry and they were getting out of the business. But the lending industry, the trillion dollar industry, you know, we do, there are my company alone that's $22 billion. So we're just one player in this big, you know, this industry. When you think about what's out there and to set your sights on what's attainable, I mean, it's really, it's not that difficult. If you want to say, I want to do, I want to do $500 million in business. You're not even scratching the surface on the amount of business that's out there, right? Well, when people get out of the business, yeah, there's a decline, but you're still talking about just so much business that those agents now, now they need someone. It's already, it's already starting. So like I said, that's starting to happen now. I'm starting to run into the agents who are coming around and saying, hey, you know, I'd like to talk to you about working together. I know you're good at what you do. We had a great transaction or whatnot, but you know, my guy got out of the business. There's already people exiting. And that's what I saw back in 2008, 2009, when I was going to 2009, I said, you know what? People are getting out of the business. I know that I know how to do this. And I know that I can be good at this. And if I can just get myself in front of more people that are still doing the business, then I know we'll see that increase. So that was that was my, really, that one of the biggest driving factors. Yeah, like Warren Buffett said, when there's blood in the streets, that's the time to invest. Yeah, I believe that as well as that much like we saw back in 2008 and 2009, everybody makes it into the old joke. They'll go back to selling cars or working at Sennabon or whatever. But I mean, it's true. There's going to be a void and people are going to be looking for right those the solid, reputable, professional, little knowledgeable mortgage loan professional. But you have to also not be a secret agent like, you know, we tell real estate agents, you've got to be out to people have to know you exist. So I'd like to maybe unpack that a little bit further on the agent topic for a moment and talk about how you are getting in front of agents. What do you do to do that? Are you making cold calls or what does that look like? You know, anything works for me. I'm fortunate to where I do have a big book of business. So I've got a lot of clothing every month and we average, even right now things are down in the industry, but I'm still, you know, averaging 55 to 60 clothing a month. And I capitalized, I mean, white cold call when you got to warm me right in front of you. When you, if you do your job, you start to finish on that transaction, you should have several individuals involved on that transaction that are going to be open to speaking. So I'll go through and I like to follow up with all my closed transactions and chances are you may have a really, maybe that came from a real estate agent or you already had established relationships there. So that's great. You proved your work there, but now there should be someone else in the transaction that you've maybe you've worked before, but you've never actually approached for business. So I start there and I reach out to them, they listen, you know, I like to, I think that having successfully closed transactions is a great way to start a, you know, a relationship. Relationships are, you know, they're based out of transactions. That's how we, that's how we make relationships. So I'll talk to the agent very directly and just reach out and say, listen, we closed on 111 last street last week and went really well. I think we could work well together and I'd like to talk to you to see if there's an opportunity to see how our businesses might interact, which technically is a cold call, but at the same time, I've got a reason for calling them and they know who I am. So it works out really well. The, now for us, my biggest competitor in my marketplace has been my company where we're doing a lot of business. We've got a lot of guys, a lot of great guys out there doing a lot of business. So when I run into someone and like, well, I work with someone from our company, then for me, I always say great. I'm glad to hear you're well represented, you know, represented good luck. And, you know, if anything changes, you have my contact information, you know, good luck out there. And, you know, so I was, I'm respectful and my colleagues and I even have some colleagues that other companies that they'll tell me they're working with and I kind of back off. They're friends, you know what I mean? We're, we're competitive, but this is a job. We're people too. So I have no problem putting that, I guess, human element in front of it, which is probably one of my downfall. But at the same time, you run into those people and they tell you, you know, I've got a guy and you tell him, you know, I would not doubt that you have a person. I hope you have someone who you like very much. But honestly, most people that I've worked with in the past have some and they like working with as well. But they didn't see maybe some of the other things that are out there that they may like even more that can help their business increase. You know, I'm starting to talk to them, try to appeal to them on a level of, you know, I'm looking here for a partnership. I'm not looking to help you grow your business. I'm looking to figure out how we can work together and we can both make more money. I guess, you know, very direct approach. Right. So that's obviously a call to the listing agent. It sounds like correct on the transaction cross-selling basically. Listing or sometimes the buyer's agent. Sometimes I've got a lot of business that comes from past clients and they're working with different agents. So it can be whoever, whoever I have not interacted with, if there's a buyer, I'll look at the buyer and the listing agent and the buyer's agent. And if I haven't worked with either of them, then that's a call I'm going to make. Do you do any, is there any evaluation you make of that agent during the transaction? You know, I think we're what I've discovered is that you know, you're smart, any smart loan officers making an assessment of who do I want to work with and partner with. Like you said, you fired the bottom feeders. So are you somehow making an assessment on should I even go for that relationship before you make that call or what does that process look like? So this is a great do as I say not as I do. So unfortunately right now, no man, I just go for it. I have the list put into my calendar every I have an assistant who puts it in every Tuesday and I just call, I just pick up and dial. It takes me back to my days of full calling when I forgot in the industry where you dial two phones at once and hang up on whichever one didn't answer. And I just go at it. Now what I will tell you is that when I when I establish that rapport with them and I find out who is credible like who wants to meet and now we need to put more time into it, then I do a little digging and say, okay, let me see what type of business they're doing. If they're only closing a few transactions, I've got someone on my team I have to meet with who sells us and gets in front of them. And for me, that's how my business works. I think for a lot of people out there, though, you can get, I'm closing a lot of business, you know, I mean, I close a tremendous amount of business in the industry. I'm doing a lot more than most people and I have the time to pick up the phone. It takes me, it takes you less than an hour. So yeah, if you give you it up that way, you can do it. Now I think people should make more of an informed decision on who they try to go after in the industry. Honestly, I think that you should do your research. You should know who you're working with. You should also understand how their business works. If you're going after a listing agent and all they do are listings and they don't even work with buyers, you're going to fall flat on your face when you try to talk to them about the great programs you can do to help their buyer secure better financing. So I think that for most people, it's a better idea to do some research so that you know what you're fighting with and what type of warrior fighting there or the battle anyway. But for me, I'm really good at just calling someone up and basically saying what I just told you, like, just calling what and be like, let's talk about working together. Then from there, I do my research. Well, speaking of listing agents, let's hang out there for a moment. When you recognize that somebody is a listing agent per se, right? What is your approach? Do you still go after them? And like you said, in a different way? Yeah, absolutely, because you have to think about it from a certain perspective. So I do like going after teens right now. I like following up and a lot of times you've got your team lead who's going to be primarily focusing on their listings. And then you've got the, you know, the how they're buyer agents, things of that nature. When I go through and I talk to someone about their listings, then I pull out whatever type of resources I have available to help them try to capture more business for their, you know, for their listings. How do they capitalize on that business so that maybe they're generating buyer leads for their team and things of that nature? So I will talk to a listing agent based on what we're looking at. And they'll get the wonderful thing I find is that most people will tell you what you need to ask them. You know, you can tell by their tone of voice that their answers to the questions, what you're going to need to, how you're going to assess this. But when I talk to someone who just wants to do listings and that's all they do, again, like I said, if they're on a team, then I'll talk to them about using our open house app to try and capture more leads so that we can get that to their team. So they're feeding their buyer agents and capitalizing on those transactions. I talk to them about better incorporating automation into their CRM and, you know, making sure they're using a CRM and trying to talk to them about resources that I have used that I've used and used currently that are helping me maintain a high volume business without sacrifice quality. So I just, I take the listing agent on their expertise and try to still them exactly what I think is going to help them and, you know, help me find like-minded individuals where they can find a benefit from my services. I mean, if I just try to call them and tell them I can close loans from them and I've got great rates and that's not really going anywhere. So. Yeah. Well, if you do get that meeting, that first meeting is really just all about discovery, right? And just it's not about letting me tell you how great it, yeah, it's like it's like I the old metaphor I use is find the pain, you're the doctor, where does it hurt and find out can you help heal that pain, right? You got it. Yeah. What else are you doing differently in this market to build your business? I want to make sure I'm not missing that. I mean, clearly you're doubling down on agents and and what I love about that is is you've seen this as well, I think, and we kind of alluded to this briefly, but you know, the bright, shiny object syndrome. I'm just, I'm seeing so many loan officers and and I think a lot of the loan officers I'm seeing were in the business back, you know, when it was tough, 2008 and all that in the meltdown. And a lot of people are distracted by the lure of air quotes, easy business with, you know, Facebook etc and all that kind of just and I'm just curious, right? Like you said, you're doing a hell of a lot of business, I mean, 55 transactions, you know, in a month, I mean, you just rocket it, you know, I'd be curious to hear what you're what you're looking at in the future here as as another pillar of your business and what advice you might have for anybody who's, you know, wanting to leave the realtor behind. I think the best thing that we that and what we all need to be doing is we have to focus on tracking our business and where it comes from. I think that if you were to put it, you know, most people's business under a microscope and ask them to do the same, a lot of people, especially, but even a lot of top producers don't know how they do what they do. They don't understand what it is that leads to a better conversion rate for them. They don't understand as much of where their business comes from. It's kind of like I said, I'm calling on Tuesday, I'm just calling all these agents, that's swinging blindly, not the best way to do it. Now, I do track what comes out of those relationships. And right now, my focus has been on tracking where is my business coming from. This way, when you have marketing expenses and business relationships, a marketing, you know, still low, whatever you're doing with other people, you have a great way of understanding what works and what doesn't work. I think that by tracking what works, more importantly, which is not work. And by that, I mean, maybe something that some actions that you're using that are costing you time, but not generating any business, you're able to understand that, then you're able to eliminate those actions that are not yielding results and double down to use your term on those that are. So you're able to figure out how to better utilize your time so that in that timeframe, you can generate more business. Now, for me, that's a game changer, because there's a lot of things we think will yield results. As I go through and I move through the next quarter, and I'm tracking my calls on Tuesday. If I find I'm not getting any meetings out of it, or it's not going anywhere, guess what I'm not doing anymore. You know, but then if I find out that every Friday night, I was hanging out at the local pub for some reason, and I just magically seem to generate a loan every time I go in there, I'm probably going to have another drink. I mean, that's the way it goes. You've got to understand where your business is coming from, and that's one of the best, I think, pieces of advice I wish someone would have shared with me when I first got into the industry, because it wasn't something that I focused on, and it was a missed opportunity. Outside of that, you know, as I already told you, I'm doubling down on the agents. I'm working to get myself in front of those referral partners. I'm working to tighten up my understanding where my business is coming from. I'm very big on educational events, so I like to get in front of agents and talk to them about the update from what's going on. You know, go through and get out there and get in front of people, and you can do this. There's so many resources available right now through social media and through, you know, going through and looking at like video outlets and platforms out there where you have an audience available, if you can find them, where you can get that message out. If you can start to look to give without asking, then you'll find yourself in a position where I think you'll start to see more benefits. So I go out and I go to real estate agent offices, and I teach courses on, you know, popular financing types, understanding, you know, I'll bring out the praise or let them talk to them about what's going on or an inspector, and I'll set up these events because essentially, what I'm doing, I'm establishing myself as an expert in the eyes of these agents and one of these agents can be newer agents or even some of them are more seasoned. But either way, I'm getting exposure to them. They're starting to keep, I'm staying top of mind. So we're, you know, we're in a sales industry, the more you stay type of top of mind, stay in front of people and show them value. The better you're going to, the better results you're going to see as far as getting those referrals. Where are you typically doing those classes in the agent's office, your office, neutral locations, all the above? All of the above. I love the agent's office. It's all let me in. That's great because for me, what I like is I like to show up a little early, like to hang out, maybe just do my business. And keep in mind, when I'm doing these trainings, these trainings and these educational events, I don't go in and tell people why I'm great, why guaranteed rate at the place and all this. I talk to them about the topic and I talk to them and if they want more information, then you know, here's how you reach me. It's not about, you know, trying to make it like a time share where, you know, you can have a free nights day, but you got to wait the whole day talking to me. You know, you offer them this without, that's what I mean by giving without asking. You'll do that, but what I really like is that you get into their office and inevitably the, a lot of the larger producers, if they weren't part of this, they may be there or someone other team may be there and they're not part of that training. Maybe they're in a different part of the office. I've got a lot of better chance of interacting with them in that case. So I'd like to go into their office so that if I see those people and they're not part of it, I'm just going to go up and ask them why. Hey, I know she didn't come in and you know, whatever, whatever the event topic is, maybe we're talking about Pondo, the new changes in Pondo guidelines. I'll be like, hey, I know she didn't come on in. I'm sure you're just busy, but are you interested in anything that has to do with, you know, the Pondo guideline changes and how that might actually help you close some more deals. So I'm giving them a personal approach. So if you can get in her office, do it, you can't get in her office, get a venue, I like neutral ground, I like a venue where you can find somewhere where you can get people in from different offices, you know, bigger audience that way. Exactly. What would you say if you can attribute like a source of your business as a source for your ability to quickly get in front of agents doing the educational events versus other approaches, how does that rank? Well, they're looking for something of value and I'm helping to educate them instead of just trying to ask them for business. So when I get out there and I approach it as this is a way that I'm going to help them find more business. I'll say, look, this is where we're at, this is what's going on, this is what's going on in our industry and this is how it affects you. That tends to get a better turnout. People are like, okay, great. So for example, I'll do ones to step by step guide on how to convert ventures into buyers. But like that, they like to step by step. I think, oh, he's going to tell me exactly how to do this, you know, like just a way to get in front of them and show them that there's some value. What's your post post event followup look like? I mean, this is definitely it's it's in my wheelhouse to leverage events. So I'm curious if you if you approach that in a formal way, you know, to capitalize on that, the people you've been in front of. I'm glad you asked that because that is the most important aspect. I mean, yes, I mean, I should say the important aspect is being viewed as an expert, but the opportunity lies within that followup. So I capture everyone's information when they come in. I take it down in my phone and I use my open health capture app, the one that I use for that I tell agents to use so that I can just make sure that I have everything and I just go around and walk around the room before we get started. I take everyone's information. Hey, give me your give me your let me take down your name and number. I'm keeping a head count and I don't where I won't spam you any more than you want me to, but you know, I want to go and get your info. And then from there followup phone calls. So I think that and I try to I always try to have a so those initial step I try to have a takeaway from the meeting something that I'm going to send them like, hey, you know, this is something I use. This is helpful for my business. And I think this is something that could help you that's relevant to today's topic. I took all your information down in the beginning. I'm going to send you that information so that you have something. Now what I'm doing, I'm saying top of mine the next day or two days later when I send that information out. I'm showing them like, hey, I'm still here. I'm going to send it out. And then after I send that out, then I start calling and I call the people and say, hey, I want to thanks for coming in. I wanted to touch base and see if there might be an opportunity for us to talk further about how our business might interact. You know, and then I just feel them out. Well, thanks, Dan. I appreciate it, but I've got a guy that works at your company. Okay, cool. And I just go through and systematically check them off the list. I make the list of these people have guaranteed rate people. These people do not. And I'm not going to lie. I'll keep my list of people who say they work with guaranteed rate people. And I'll circle back with them six months later. Hey, we talked. I know you were working with such and such. Are you guys still are you still going through? Are you guys still working together a lot? You know, and find out where they're at. So I'm not trying to I'm never trying to post business from my co-workers. You never know when a deal went sour. And now that person's going to another company. You know, you don't want that. You want him to stay with you want to show them. They can't look. This is the way that we can try to build. So yeah, how much do you press for the appointment when they tell you, yeah, I'm already working with somebody, but it's not at your company. It's at a competitor. Full court. That's the idea. That's someone who just told you I've got I'm the kind of person who would like to refer business to someone and I've got someone. They just told me that they're the kind of person I want to get in front of. So I'm going to absolutely say listen, I can all understand and I'd love to I'm not looking to necessarily replace your your relationship with them. Although, let's be honest, that is my goal. But at the same time, I'm just looking to see if maybe there's a way that if you know, you've got a guy in your center of the company, well, let's talk about how I can be your guy at my company because we have resources and some options that are available that other companies may not offer that you may help you save that deal. So let's let's maybe if you know, if you got just a little bit of time, let's get together and talk about that. How many agents are here? Yeah, no, I love that. So for those listening, right? Just because I mean, no, it's just the first step, right? How many how many knows does it usually take to get to a yes? Like my people and sales. How many of those educational events do you do in a month on average? Educational deals, I do I as far as educational seminars, I try to have one so one a week. One a week? I have. I'll tell you this. I started I started back in June and I have one a week every week up until up until now in September and I finished my first the first week of September. I finished off my last one and then I took the rest of this month off and now I'm starting over again in October with the the series because I have the I'm lucky I have our launch at several large real estate offices in Chicago. So I'm able to go in and do a round-robin of topics amongst these offices. I don't even I don't even have to worry about like, you know, who am I going to talk to and who am I going to invite they invite people they get them out and and it keeps me top of mind with those agents. So I'm I'm farming a certain area. I love that right now. I love that you said you're farming a certain area and think about that in the concept of realtors farming geo. You're doing the same thing. Crawl doing the same thing. We're all in the same business. It agents and lenders. You know what I'm saying. But but the thing I love about the the the class is if you will that's what I'll call them you call workshops whatever same thing you're getting in front of groups of people is you know we all know that getting you know realtor relationships is a numbers game and you've got to right you need the law of large numbers in your favor and you simmered me back when I first got started you know my my first year was terrible but then all of a sudden I started getting in front of groups and I just multiplied my results because as you said earlier the name of the game is getting in front of people and if the more people you get in front of them the more at bats you'll have the more you'll win so it sounds like for you if I'm correct them for you building your your brand your presence in your area those workshops those events that's like top of the funnel stuff right absolutely yeah that's where you're getting in front of them initially to get them to see how you can generate better and one thing I'll point out when as I going back on the tracking aspect of it so now I'm going out and I've got a really large I cast a pretty wide net so to speak for the people that I'm looking to approach for business out of that now I'm looking to determine how many of those people am I going to spend time with got to figure out like every if one of these agents is only doing a deal a year and they have no interest in doing more than that then they're not someone who I'm going to spend a hour you know a week with they're not someone who I'm going to spend a lot of time with from that aspect so you know going through all figure out who's doing the business also then measure that metric based on what their motivation is and one thing that I always tell people that I work with and what not is that a good referral source you'll generally start to see referrals from immediately if you're farming a group of agents and it's been 30 days and you haven't got anything from them they're not going to be the best use of your time now if you have the time you can put them on automated trip campaigns certain things keep them coming to your events things of that nature but I find that the agents that are going to produce and do be that are worth the time and want to work they generally they usually build results within 24 to 48 hours like you you know when you connect with someone when they say hey my brother's looking to buy here you go or I've had this client he's been looking for three months we just I don't know that I like his lender things of that nature so you start to look at what your agents if they're treating it as a partnership or if they're just looking for a handout because a lot of times you run into this and say oh I want to buy these on dillow we pay for it and by the way I know I think you and I talked about that before you're answer to that if you get that pitch be curious to hear how often you do from agents who come out saying yeah well I'd love to you know hey my current lender spends X on Zillow I mean do you deal with that a lot I do I hear people all the time talk about it I'll let them know I'll it'll I'll gauge it on the agent agents doing a lot of business and they say well I've got lenders who sponsor me on dillow say I I greet them all with the same thing absolutely that's a great idea let's talk a little bit about that so how much are you spending on dillow right now okay how many leads did you generate from that you know since you last signed up and how do those do you know how many you actually converted the sale and then they're like oh I don't I don't know they don't know they have no idea you know they can tell you like oh I closed five deals last year or whatever but they're not going to be able to tell you their actual conversion rate so I'll press them and they look you know in order to spend money like this I'm I'm absolutely up for a joint business venture I think we're in this together but I need to understand more from a realistic perspective what we get and and how that business relationship is going to work and then I'll go on and I'll explain to them how I'm compensated because the truth is a lot of agents don't realize that we don't get paid the same way they do it thinks that you're making two and a half percent every deal and then you're your percentage of it so I'll explain them they look this is what I make this is where I'm at you want me to give you this much money well let's look at it you closed 10 deals last year you want me to give you X amount that means I would have to close 13 of your transactions just to break even you only close 10 not only are we counting on your business increasing but you're accounting on me getting 100 percent of that business that doesn't seem very realistic like you know so and if they press it they have a major my loan officer is paying for it and they will I think that's great I think you guys should continue that relationship and you know this is not a good fit so if you change your mind and you decide that you want to focus on actually increasing and doing more business then we should talk otherwise good luck I hope everything works out so you're trying to pivot and not have the relationship be predicated upon that but but on the value you bring to the table yeah if you monetize the relationship then it's only going to last as long as you know until someone else steps up with a bigger checkbook and that's going to be a problem that's where you're throwing money away I used to think that was a great way of doing business it is not no I know because then they just look at you as a you know a slot machine it's spitting out money to help them cover their lead cost and they don't see the value that you provide right and you also you have to keep in mind maybe you and you know taking it further maybe you close some deals with them maybe you're spending some money you're closing deals but how much time and frustration are they are they closing in your business I even though I'm ramping up my business now I started before I just did this of course last few weeks I fired a few of my long term agent I got rid of them I was like you know what and actually I took the genius approach to ask my wife I said listen who do you hear me who do you hear me complain about the most like who do you what names come to mind when you think about people I work with then I'm not happy with give me a couple names I agree in a cut of immediate and so listen I don't think that we're you know our partnership is really in a position where we feel I don't think it's mutually beneficial at this point and I'm always happy to help if you have clients that want to work together but for now you know because we have marketing spend I'm like for now I'm gonna I'm gonna withdraw on this so I see how you because I know I was to be upfront so that you can look for another partner if you're looking for someone to invest but otherwise I'm gonna I'm gonna battle out you you mentioned marketing spend are the ones that you're just you're talking about there typically where there is some marketing spend those are you letting go yeah we co-host like client appreciation parties or anything of that nature does anything where they're gonna expect me to try and at least share the cost with them farming a neighborhood just listed just sold cars any of that things I just I let them to be honest so I let them know what's from because even though they're poisoning the well I don't want to they can poison the well on their want if I'm not giving them that power but then they tell me they have a client that they need me to save the deal on I still want to be that guy because I have no problem pushing that on it like going through talking to the client getting the deal done and closing and catching the commission the frustration from these agents comes from their lack of respect and appreciation for what we do I limit that by telling them not giving you anything you want to give me something I'll help because then I don't really even maybe they can't reach me maybe they keep catching my assistant you know what I mean so there's an approach there's an approach to not burning bridges but also not again farming relationships that are just going to poison the well they're going to get in the way of the other relationships and put you in a negative headspace right right exactly okay speaking of your assistant let's transition briefly to kind of your business structure because you mentioned you're you were closing I think 55 transactions in 30 days was the number is that correct yeah 59 59 yeah that's a hell of a lot of transactions and so obviously when people hear about that I know you've gotten this question before people are curious you know hey well you know we got the juniors on his team how's he originating all that but even more importantly the structure in the process because I know looking at my notes from our last conversation you want to grow to 100 purchase transactions monthly is it yeah I find on closing going going right now without what I'm fostering building and farming I'm looking to close the minimum of 1200 purchase transactions a year okay so then the question becomes how the heck do you do that without going insane efficiency in timing it's understanding certain efficiencies and automations that we can use so in the past it and I'll say I don't have a junior and I never have I'm not saying that I'm never going to but right now that's not my plan I've got enough I've got a good plan and a well a very efficient scripted approach that I use that helps me convert I have a high conversion rate there I can tell you right now I close a lot of business I know a lot of loan officers who get twice as many referrals as I do and I still close more business with them because I have a high conversion rate because I pay attention to what works I've scripted my approach I pay attention when certain things get a certain reaction and I've dialed that in from the three-step process that I look at which is my initial introduction flash get someone to get my pre-approval in place the follow-up on the pre-approval and then the follow-up once they're under contract and I've set that up to a certain I use the same I hate to say but in certain cases I use the same jokes I use the same approach the same questions I know how to control and direct that conversation so that I can convert effectively the client gets everything they need from the relationship and they don't generally don't go looking elsewhere and if they do they still fill a connection so because of that high conversion rate for me it's a number of games of just increasing then the amount of business that comes through and I'm I've mapped it out from an efficiency standpoint where I can actually maintain enough calls to grow to the staff marker a hundred a month is a marker after that I don't know that I can really I don't think I can have that many conversations in a day just doesn't work that well let me interrupt for a second then I'm kind of curious how many as you know your numbers clearly and that's again the hallmark of the top producer people listening any sense of how many conversations with perspective borrowers you need to have to get to let's just say 50 units a month 50 and that's a month you need to be having an average of eight conversations a day based off my my conversion rate currently right and and results may vary based on your success rate but eight conversations hey yeah I mean some LLs are lucky to have eight conversations every two weeks keep in mind to that date conversations doesn't have to be eight new clients everyone that are different stages but it should be eight different people and I'm I'm pushing right now to grow that's 20 I've made my map out my timing to where I'm looking to have a 20 efficient conversations on a daily basis five days a week and I can I can spread it out a little bit where maybe I get a few in next right here or there maybe I use a Saturday or Sunday although I'm trying not to ever work Saturday in Sundays and uh and go through because for me I feel like I'm overshooting what it would take from from what I've tracked for what I would need to hit the goal that I want I want to shoot higher um but for me it's all about the structure of the team that I have so I don't have juniors but I've got a large team I've got 13 people it's tremendously large it's it's a big group of people who support everything I do um and none of them handle the sales but they handle everything else so so I know guys though I know guys who have closed more business than me with less than half the people I have so it depends on you your personal approach and your efficiency well yeah I think that the big takeaways number one in order to grow you need a team period right yep okay so whether you're at yeah whether you're wanting to go from you know five loans a month to 10 whatever it is you're gonna need a team to support you so for those listening you know you hear somebody like Sam who's doing 59 transactions right the don't judge I the thing I want to be cautious of is people hear this and it sounds like so far out there like oh my god I mean to use 13 people as team like that's way out of my league you know right it's not where you started look at technology look at technologies you don't even need a team to reach to increase your business if you're if you're spending all your time focusing on certain efforts start to look towards things you may be able to automate and you know you can't delegate automate what you can and find ways to personalize those automation so you don't suffer for quality and a lot of people don't realize you can automate yourself I automate I use the same you know I've said it earlier and I say it again I use scripts I don't write them out they're memorized and they were memorized because I was talking to so many people I just started saying the same thing over because it worked you find what works and you repeat it and I automate myself by saying those same scripts every time I go through and talk to the client and what I mean by that is that I don't have to think about what I'm going to say I don't have to think about what I'm going to do when I get off that call I don't have to think about the follow up I already haven't mapped out I know everything's going to go we only have so much time to think in a day before it burns out if you automate yourself you use those same scripts you're going to get sick of saying them but at the same time your actual brain power and what you need to think about can be then focused on other tasks which is generating more business what's your number one objective when you're on that initial call with a borrower perspective borrower and you're using your script what are you really trying to accomplish because you've obviously tested the language and you've listed and reacted and adjusted but what's the ultimate objective with that first conversation to complete the pre-approval I use an online application from my pre-approvals and my sole objective is to complete that pre-approval is and it's to gain an understanding through that it's basically because there's three steps for me it's complete the pre-approval go over the pre-approval and options and convert that contract when it comes in so my number one goal for the initial call or when that's that up is to get someone to agree to give me their information and I'm and they do they owe it I can tell you I have a I right now I'm running 99 percent on my on my scheduled calls for people who want to get pre-approved 99 percent of them complete my online application how long is that conversation generally between eight to ten minutes it's interesting how are you establishing trust then in differentiation one thing to keep in mind if these clients are referred to me from a past client or an agent referral there's already a certain level of trust that's coming into it because you were you were referred to business from someone else let's say it's not start any conversation by developing some report you've got to you know and people will tell you what you want to hear when you call them and they pick up the phone and they go hello like what did they just tell you they don't have time to talk so you don't have 20 minutes you know what I mean or oh yeah man I just put my baby down I got hour and a half I'm good that person not only are they relaxed but they have time I have a baby I'm going to talk to them about the baby real quick you know what I mean like they're telling you what to say so you just got to listen listen to the from listen from hello and control by how you say hello and you go through and you set the tone of the conversation to leave someone conversationaly through your script the important part about people don't like to use scripts because they don't want to sound like they're reading from something and you should it should be a conversational manner so I go through and I talk to people in initial conversation I work and I'm fortunate I'm pretty good at making people feel comfortable within a few minutes and but I control the conversation by talking to them at the end of the day they came to you for a reason they came to you to get pretty approved right that's why they're calling you they didn't call you to have a new best friend they didn't call you to talk about last night's game they did that's okay start that conversation but direct it because otherwise that person is keeping you on the phone for half a hour and you may not get that deal and you just wasted your efficiencies your timing's more important than that so you got to show them that but respectfully to talk to them and yeah great no problem yeah the game works good I know you and I talked when we started started the podcast how about the bear versus the patriot right bears are doing better than the Patriots not you're not going to say that ever again or often whatever I mean you laugh I laugh and I say listen so not to say the obvious but it looks like you think it about buying a home and then not too distant future yeah I say that every single time and every person tells me what I want to hear yeah you know I'm moving or doing this I'll talk let's say great have you ever been through the pre-approval process so what I'm doing is I'm directing them towards art I'm controlling them towards my directives doing it conversationally and I'm giving them what they want by the end of that they feel so well informed that that trust is there and I think that's why my conversion rate I'm getting that pre-approval it's so high no it's a great point you have to be in charge of the conversation 100% while that's what they're calling you for you're the expert you're the one who's supposed to tell them what they need to know most people don't know what they don't know most people don't know what they don't know and then I can go on forever oh no I know so I'm like thinking of all these additional questions but we just don't have time for that but I think the big takeaway from this segment is scripting you've got it and I think that's more important today than ever considering what's going on in the market with compressions and you know people being conditioned to shop and just ask what's your rate you've got to take control of the transaction or you're dead in the water absolutely from start to finish yeah yeah all right cool so in closing it out here what do you what do you look in that I know you mentioned technology a couple of times I'm wondering are you going to diversify your business at all or you're going to stay you know placing all bets on agents I'm now I'm diversifying my business I'm like everyone else always looking towards avenues using social media video outlets I'm looking to cast a wider net without having to spend more time doing it so I do look at some of those funnels and and I'm currently investigating looking at target marketing through outlets that'll allow me to get in front of a wider audience and then within that looking to create efficiencies to get in front as many people with my directives as possible so I can try to generate some leads and some business I know a lot of the focus right now it's to generate leads so we can take the power back from agents I like that yeah everyone likes that idea it sounds amazing and I think it exists so that's that's I'm focusing time and effort on that as well I'm looking at trying to make sure that I can trade a better I guess a wider playing field I always they cast the wider net when you're looking for where you want to get your business so I'm looking through social media outlets I'm looking through efficiencies through technology through using CRM and video outlets that'll allow me again in front of these people with pre-recorded preset types of messaging things that I can use that are effective and again just like anything you find what works and repeat it so I'm focusing my strategies on that but in terms of percentage of time you're focused on that as compared to the bread and butter of real estate agents can you assign a number to that so I can because I can tell you this in 2016 and 2017 68 69 and 68 percent of my business came from past clients whether they referred me out or they referred they bought another home or why not I worked with a very small pool of real estate agents and again I mentioned it for about eight some of those were teams because some of them had like six people on their team just varying degrees of production but the lies here in my business came from all that past clients when I realized this year is that unfortunately people can only buy so many homes they can only refer you to so many people those clients will maintain great sources maybe five years from now I'll start to see another uptake from from that source but I also realized from paying attention where my business was coming from this year and what was going on in a marketplace that I had to expand that net to get more business from real estate agents financial advisors as well talton I started branching out towards who I was asking for business because the people that I had been asking for business had probably given me the lion's share of what they could give at this point in time so yes a lot of my focus is going back towards agents because I think it's a great way to do it secondarily I also have come up with a pretty good strategy that I'm using that I think helps me solidify strong relationships with agents that will yield results so I've set my size on that target and that's why I'm pursuing with the majority of my full force but then at the same time I dedicate time to developing these other opportunities through technology and through social media so one last quick question on the agent thing I'm curious you're taking on this do agree or feel that in terms of if you're wanting to get a quick jump start in your business of purchase money referrals as compared to the other options out there if done right agents is the quickest path to that yeah okay I was just going to clarify about assuming you like you don't have a huge pass client database or whatnot yeah if you don't have a database agents are going to be your bread and butter for starting out and getting a good reputation proper marketing and you know what that's also because I'm only developing my property my marketing strategy through target marketing and social media outlets um there are some guys out there that are far better at that than I am that don't do any agent targeting and they do all their business through social media platforms and things of that nature they're different types of business though you have to keep in mind when you have business that's coming from a certain type of lead you're going to have to change your scripts on how you approach that business you're asking me about how I gain the trust well all my business is coming from these other sources where I already have a bit of trust established okay calling the lowly's all day you better change your scripts because those people don't trust you and you have to reestablish you have to find a better way to come across so it's understanding your audience than what you're working at for newer people get out there get the agents get them get them get some get some rapport build and you know because they're your partners out there and start partnering up with them yeah and find out what do you bring back right get clear on your value prop for sure 100 percent awesome we'll look at I know you're busy uh you've got the stuff to do and you know what's funny is I wanted to mention this at the beginning but I had overlooked it but it all makes sense now as to why you're so wildly crazy successfuls because you're a drummer this is true you know they say a band only is good at their drummer I think uh a lot of originators only as good as he is if you'd actually a drummer you've got a great story about start you know being a professional drummer the starving artist story so uh you know I think that helped you uh build some thick skin maybe for succeeding as a loan officer I think so take it don't do the hard work and then the necessary component stamps of for those who might want to reach out to you just to connect and say hi what do you recommend where should they connect with you they can give me a call shoot me an email um you can find me through my uh my Facebook platform as well I operate under sharp solutions um I also you can you can mess me through a training company that I've started called top professional mortgage training which is to help teach originators how to do exactly what I do um that's that's a whole another topic we can talk about another day but uh outside of that you know you can email me at f sharp that's as in Sam at rake.com or shoot me a call at any time at seven seven three two nine zero zero four five five all right man that sounds awesome we'll put links to that in the show notes and I just want to say thank you for your time for being here man learned a lot and um thank you I appreciate thank you very much you bet listers uh once again thank you for tuning in if you like today's episode please let us know give us a shout out a little love there on in the inner webs little review to the podcast and uh as always appreciate you tuning in go ahead and make it a great day we will see you on the next one bye for now thanks for listening to mortgage marketing radio one more truth in mortgage marketing get more free training and resources at mortgage marketing institute.com Hey guys what's up real quick uh you've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before and you just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans you need to fill your pipeline with purchase business let's just face it agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you well good news our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling done for you agent classes expert training videos a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market attracting convert agents into referral partners plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class getting agents butts and seats partnering with affiliates real easy but that's not all you'll also get access to weekly mastermind calls with top elbows authors speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market and as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months and we'll provide that list uploaded to our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents so what are you waiting for you can check out more at mortgage marketing.pro see more of the success stories there and if you feel compelled to do so book a call we'll have a chat we'll see if it's a fit don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now head over to mortgage marketing.pro