Ep #94: Making the Shift...How a $3 Billion Dollar Originator Goes from Old School to Modern Marketer

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 Zimfer, welcome to yet another episode of mortgage marketing radio. We are fast approaching episode 100. You have anybody in mind you'd like me to feature on the podcast, I'm all ears. You know, you can email me anytime podcast at mortgagemarketingradio.com. If you've got any suggestions for content topics, you can also jump into our Facebook group, the podcast community over on Facebook, just type in a search for mortgage marketing radio podcast into your Facebook search bar and you'll get to our group. So as always, I appreciate you being here. If you're liking these episodes, if you haven't yet taken a moment to leave us a review, whether it's on our Facebook page or what you're listening right now on your favorite podcast, player, source, iTunes, Google Play, wherever else, fine podcasts are available, I appreciate you leaving a review. The more reviews we get, the better rankings, the more people we can reach in the more positive impact we can have and if you're getting results, positive impact benefits out of this podcast, why not pay it forward? Why not share this podcast with somebody else, a colleague or friend in the industry? So okay, this week we are talking about how a $3 billion originator makes the switch, the switch from old school, the modern marketer. That's right. Many of you listening to this might consider yourself old school. The average age of an originator is what, about 52 years old. So for some of us, myself included, we've got to learn some new things, some new ways to communicate, to engage and reach out and market and build our brand. And my special guest today fits that bill perfectly because not only is he's just one heck of an individual, a great all-around human being, but also he's a phenomenal producer and achiever, 28 years of industry experience, over 3 billion enclosed loans, consistently ranked in the top 100 originators in the country for the last 19 years out of 300,000. That is consistent performance. Who am I speaking of? I'm speaking of none other than David Jaffee out of West Lake Village in Oxnard, California. And we are going to dive into really the fundamental, the basics, the foundational activity of these disciplines that David has put into place for, as we said, over 28 years, but he's also found himself recently needing to pivot and shift because let's face it, people aren't necessarily buying as many houses as they once were. You know, 65% of his business last year was database, but you'll hear David talk about how that source, while it's still very profitable and should be pursued and optimized, he's finding that he needs to diversify a bit. So, we're going to talk about how he does past client reviews and any reviews and things like that and kind of what his daily method of operation is, you know, the daily structurally has to his activities in terms of calls and meetings and so forth, dealing with rate shoppers, we're going to discuss going consumer direct, we're going to talk about how he's using video in an incredible way, getting video testimonials from his clients and teaming up with referral partners and just really the whole conversation around pivoting, how he's using video and his marketing to differentiate himself. And of course, what you'll hear from David is his discipline and focus that he's got as David likes to say, keep doing things right and business comes in the door and doing the right thing is always the right thing. So before I bring on my special guest, remember if you're just pruning in now and you haven't yet checked out the mortgage marketing pro membership, that's for you listeners who want to go to the next level, who want to get more efficient and effective with your referral partners, get more referrals from real estate agents in less time and do that by teaching aging classes. We've got a whole suite of done for you, lunch, learn, turn key classes that get butts and seats and loans in the pipeline. If you want to get better at your process, your process, you're scripting, your conversion, your visual value and if you want to be able to build your brand online and pivot like David has to become a digital marketer, become a modern originator, we'll check out mortgage marketing.pro, I'll be links in the show notes, but that's where you can find it for more info there. And with that said, let's get into this week's show with my special guest, David Jaffe. Hey David, welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me, Jaffe, I appreciate it. It is an honor, my friend, sir, I dare say, sir, I feel like I'm addressing you as like some kind of royalty in the mortgage space. Well, I'm going to train you properly, Jaffe. So I'm not, you know, blowing smoke just because you're a guest, it's because, man, I just remember back when I started as an originator back in 2003, you know, we all look for role models out there, right? Well, look for, hey, who's doing some, man, you used to come on my radar all the time of like, you know, David Jaffe up in LA, he's doing some amazing things. I mean, 25 years, over 3 billion in residential mortgages, so you've done a loan or two, huh? Yeah, I've done a couple, we try to do as many as we can. That is awesome. So I usually, let's open it up with this, people heard the kind of the formal introduction, but let me ask it this way, you've been in the business now 25 plus years, 28, is that right? Correct. 28 years. Why? And what keeps you going today? This is really a great business because you have the ability to be the master of your world in a 100% commission world. There's no excuses. You either deliver or you don't deliver. You can be your own boss, but obviously in the mortgage business, mostly working under someone's umbrella, especially in the last 10 years, but you run your own business. And I've always wanted to be in charge of my own world. And this business has really enabled me to do that. Hmm. So I appreciate you sharing that, by the way. What about, then you're a unique individual, I can see, you know, you're into physical challenges and stuff. You just check something off your bucket list, you hiked Mount Whitney, correct? Correct. Yep. What's the elevation on that? 14,500 feet. Was it taking you like two hours to get that done? I wish. I wish. 12 hours run trip. 12 hours run trip. And it was a lot of fun and something I had to cross off the bucket list before I get too old. Well, it seems like, you know, so to connect this together, straight commission, it takes it to me. You know, it takes a certain DNA, would you agree for somebody to be in a straight commission position? Without a doubt, and it's interesting, I look back and so many people I know, in fact, you know, the majority of America, they're working on, you know, a salary basis or an hourly basis, and they're working, you know, for a company. And when I first started commission only 20 years ago, I was kind of freaking out, but it was definitely easier for me because I was living in home with my parents. So I had a much better safety net than the majority of people that start in this business. But I remember thinking about 15 or 20 years ago, I would actually feel uncomfortable working for a company with a salary and more comfortable on commission only because I feel like I can control more of my destiny that way. So are you a control freak? Yeah, I may have been accused of that a couple of times. Spending an hour in my office, you make it some verification of that. Well, I'm sure that that served you, I guess it's a double-edged sword, but to one side of the sword, it served you in building, I mean, 28 years, clearly you've done something right. Yeah, it definitely is a catch 22 on one and it makes you drive to succeed and do good and makes sure you have total control. But on the flip side, it also holds you back being a control freak. I hired coaching about 16 or 17 years ago, which really enabled me to step away from the control freak part and really work on the delegation, and that's where my business really exploded. And then after the business exploded, it then enabled me to be able to work less but still maintain a good volume level. What were some of the things you initially delegated? You know, one of the greatest things I learned at some conference was, I was told to put a list on my desk and every time I did something, I would write down on a piece of paper, everything I did. And I did that for three days and I had a long list and then I went back to that list and I said, what are the things that I don't need to do and everything I didn't need to do. I moved to the right side of the column and that was my first assistant. So that was things like getting my postcards together for mailing, calling for conditions, just all the minutia that we do in the lending world. So that first assistant was not so much a LOA, you know, doing paperwork process related things but more so like marketing and those types of like non-high pay off at tasks. Correct. It was mostly clerical marketing, there was no selling part of it at all. It was simply just doing the clerical stuff to take those things off my desk and I probably had that person in that role. I think I probably got my first assistant maybe three or four years in and I probably didn't bring on someone super skilled until I was in the business for a good 14, 15 years. Wow. How many, when you brought on that marketing assistant, the clerical stuff, how many units roughly were you doing then? Let's see, I was doing 30 million and my average loan was 160. So what was that, probably about 100, maybe close to 200 units. Wow. So I asked, yeah, I was definitely understaffed, that's for sure, for a long time. Were you working mega hours managing that? I was working a lot of hours, I was single, living alone and all I did was work and go at my friends. It was one of those two things, there was nothing else. Yeah, it's interesting to unpack that a little bit because there's two stories there. And the one story is, it's, I guess I'm partly curious why you didn't ask for help sooner or get help sooner. I didn't understand that I needed help and I also think a part of it was thinking, this can't continue. What if my business drops and now I've got an employee that I've got to support? And I think I see that with a lot of people on the mortgage side as well as realtors, they don't want a higher person because they don't know if they're always going to need them. But what I found is when I did hire somebody, I was almost always able to keep the volume up, to keep them and keep them employed. And to go to the next level, you really do need to take things off your plate so that you can do things in your gifted zone. Do things what in your gifted zone? In your gifted zone, correct. What would you say your gifted zone is? My gifted zone has definitely changed probably in the last 10 years. But my gifted zone, when I was doing the biggest growth of my business, probably the first 15 to 18 years, was just going out and knocking on doors. I was incredibly consistent. I was persistently consistent and consistently persistent. I never, I never missed a marketing of the task that I had on my business plan. If I had phone calls to make to call realtors, I would never miss those phone calls. I would go to open houses every Sunday. It would be such a bummer having to leave, you know, this is my single days. My friends would rent a beach house and I'd be able to go for a couple of hours and that I'd have to go leave and go to work on Sundays. But I was incredibly disciplined and focused and that was my gifted zone for sure. Wow. That's man. There's so much right here just to talk about, um, disciplined and focused. I see this nice, you know, I get a broad section of exposure to loan officers at various levels of experience, you know, there's someone like you, right, long term veteran, um, understands kind of the, if you will, the fundamental blocking and tackling it takes to succeed with real, then there's the newbies who come in, if you will, you know, last three, five years, whatever. And it, I don't know, and forgive me for anybody listening and there's nothing personal here. But sometimes I'm seeing a lack of the work ethic on that discipline, like you said, right? I mean, who's got that level of commitment to break away from the beach house on Sunday? Yeah, you know, a lot of people, they want to do the get rich quick scheme. And I've always said in this business, it's the get rich slowly way of doing it and even to this day, 28 years in, you know, our business ebbs and flows and we go through slow times and even after all these years, I find it incredibly frustrating to be slow. But I keep telling myself, keep doing things right and the business will come in the door as it always has. And so by getting rich slowly, it was putting a plan in place and being sure that you fall about plan and never, never not do what you're supposed to do. And I agree. Look, there's all kinds of coaching saying, you know, you want to have a balanced life, you don't want to take phone calls on evenings and weekends, you don't want to work more than 40 hours a week. Well, you know, it took me probably, I don't know, 20 years to get there. But I would say the first 20 years, I took calls in the evenings and the weekends and I was working six hours a week, sometimes 70 hours a week. Because all I cared about, all I would, I would just eat, breathe, sleep, growing my business that's all I ever thought about. What about you? What in your, your history, your background upbringing, whatever has, has played a role in making you so driven? That's a really good question. Now, are you going to start charging me an hourly fee for my psychologist? Yes. Are you on the couch? I don't know. I think that just from being younger, maybe, you know, junior high, whatever, I never feel like I had succeeded in a lot. It wasn't until I started playing sports at high school that I really felt that feeling of success. And man, I'd love that feeling. What was your score? That was awesome. I played water polo. Oh, well, that enough said, that explains it. You're all crazy. And let's be clear, I wasn't good, but my team was good and successful. Had it not been for them? Well, I would have been the same boat. So, but I love that feeling of succeeding, and I got to tell you, my call drew me just to always make fun of me because I would sit there and go, I'm going to be number one one there. I'm going to be number one. And, and then, you know, 20 years later, they're like, oh gosh, Jeffy, we didn't believe you. So I just, I've always had that drive. I don't know why. Well, actually, there's a lesson in there as well. It's like, you know, it's all about, you've heard the old saying, we become the average of the five people we spend the most time around. Yep. So that's true today in terms of team and, you know, getting around environments for coaching and what's your office culture like and things like that. So that team seems like, even though you weren't necessarily the highest skilled athlete, you were, the team was kind of pulling you up, you know what I'm saying? Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. I mean, well, you know, last place would have probably been where we were. Yeah. But listen, I mean, water polo man and that culture is crazy. You guys, the stuff that goes on, like underneath the wall, it's like football and water, you know, each other up, punching people, it's crazy. Maybe that's why my career ended after my freshman year in college. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. All right. Interesting. Okay. I want to go back to the, what you talked about with the high volume, you were doing high volume. Let's just call it 10 units a month for quite a while. How are we able to manage that? And I say that in the context of this and I don't know if you're, you get exposed to this. You know, I get, I get a lot of L.O.'s who are like, you know, man, I met four units a month. I mean, an assistant. How are you able to manage all that volume units? You know what? It's funny. You just do it. I mean, I'm doing much less units, you know, this year that I've had in some of my top years. And, and it's funny, I am definitely working less, but maybe not that much less. It's funny. You just find a way to do it. But without a doubt, discipline and time focus. So probably, I don't know, 20 years ago, I started getting up at five in the morning and I would be at my desk at six. So from six to eight thirty and that two and a half hours, you can do an eight hour work day in two and a half hours when there's no phone, no email, no text. Another way to do it, I always, to this day still, I plan my day every night before the next day. I look and see what's on my calendar. I see what's important. And then I rank those most important things that I have to do first. Time blocking. Time blocking. Yep. And it's hard, especially now with texting an email, man, it's, I have to actually shut my email off because my ADD just goes out of control. What about, there's the constant debate that goes on, you know, with time blocking. And when do you break that time block you have with yourself? A lot of people are like, well, if I get a call from an agent, I have to take it. I don't know, that's maybe a personal philosophy. What's yours around that? Well, I never do more than a 60 minute time block, no one, if it's super urgent, never has to be more than an hour. And sometimes I'll only do 30 minute time blocks because I've done all these studies. And everybody says there's great multitaskers, but there's not a single study out there that says multitasking works. Brain doesn't work that way. So every time you stop doing something, you know, you can lose, you know, 10 minutes trying to get that to where you were. Sure. And I still struggle with time blocking this day. It's hard. And that's why to me, the early morning is just, it's crucial. I mean, I'll do all my loan setups, all my marketing, anything I have to write. I'll do before eight, three in the morning, because once the phone rings, I'm done. Yeah, it's just chaos then at that point. Yeah, I'm interesting, interesting. Okay, good. Nice lessons in there for time blocking. And I agree with you, those studies for, you know, people who think they can multitask. You just can't just time block 30 minutes, get that task done. And then take a break, take a breather, take a walk and then get back on that next time block. But I, and also it just while we're on the topic, because I'm sure you've read like the one thing and did some studying on that, um, is to, you've got to also fill your, you allow time in your calendar for chaos and for randomness, which goes, which speaks to your point about get the, get the heavy lifting done early in the day, early in the morning, you got that time. And then if you're going to make calls, get that done before noon, too. Yeah, that's the only way to do it. Yeah, it just won't happen if you don't do it that way. All right, let's talk about your business, man. Got some notes here from our last chat. 65% of your business last year was passed out of base clients, correct? Correct. And that's actually be consistent for nearly my whole career. Right. Okay. So, and this is often as, you don't have to have spoken about often a, it's one of those things. It's like people are stepping over dollars, you know, it still happens today. I don't, I've been banging this drum for a long time. I made the mistake as well, though early on, you know, just because I was all about the hunt and let's just go get deals and move on and whatever. You learned early on that the importance of database marketing. Why is there some wise Yoda coach you had or something? Yeah, when I was brand new in the business, I was probably in it for maybe 90 days and I went to the old Pratt Duncan seminar. Now it's just Todd Duncan and he talked about having a database, staying in contact with clients and, you know, creating a constant soon referrals. Now, my dad was in the retail business for 35 years. So, my dad was a great mentor and that he always taught me, you know, the client is always right. I remember that as a kid and his business was built on repeat customers. And so I had that going in and then I went to this seminar and they talked about the database and well, I'll tell you, fortunately, I ran with that from my first 90 days in the business. I had a database of all my clients and I wasn't looking just to close alone and never see those people again. I just wanted to build that database and even to this day, I'll have this conversation sometimes with clients and I'm trying to reel in alone. And I say, look, if I just do one loan for you and I never see again, I feel like I'm wasting my time. I'm here to do this loan and every loan you ever need again in the future, as well as anybody else you know. And that's my philosophy for 28 years now. And so there's a specific structure for how you stay in touch with, stay top of mind with your past database. You're talking about that briefly. So we used to, in the beginning, we were only doing poorly newsletters. And then I went to another conference about a year later and there's a big producer back in those days and he was touching his database 15 times a year. So I went, wow, so I went back to my office and I instituted 15 touches a year. And the next year, my database for furlbus is doubled by going from four to 15 contacts because people just do forget you. There's too much going on in life. But right now, we're actually doing, believe it or 25 contacts a year with our database. We just, we just need to buy brain cells constantly. And the big difference today versus 20 years ago is social media and Facebook and internet. You can't log on to the internet without getting some banner ad for, you know, lower your rate, you know, to 2% for a 15 year fix. I mean, you just can't go online or anywhere without a mortgage advertisement. So we have to be even better at buying our clients brain cells. So Jeff, do you want me to talk about how we do that? Yeah, absolutely. I'm back up. Okay. So we do 12 snail males a year and everybody's going, why you use the post office email? Yep, we do. The reason why is each family has a different decision maker. So in my house, I basically do the bills and I get the mail. But what if my wife was a decision maker on mortgage? She would never see that mail. So we have to make sure that we're hitting the family a couple of different ways. So the 12 snowmails is made up of four newsletters. So once a quarter, yep, and then eight postcards on the eight postcards, we call our my who I helped postcards. And what I do is I lay out a scenario of what we, a real life solution that we've done for clients. So the postcard says, who I helped this week, and then I lay out the scenario, then I lay out the solution. So they're seeing real real things that we do. Yeah, I want to unpack that a little bit. What does that look like visually? Yep. So we use a two sided oversight postcard, which is half of an eight and half by 11 and the reason I'm using a postcard is because frankly, maybe 10% of people, if I'm lucky, read it. So I don't really care if they read it. I just want them to see my name and my face, even if they look at it for an instant, they throw it in the trash. At least they've seen my name, my face, and I could be toppled mind if something comes up. So one side is just myself and my business partner. And then the other side is the story. Okay. So this is a story of somebody you've, you've helped. Correct. Yep. And obviously you've got enough of those because, you know, the volume to do it every month, you're going to have lots of stories, right? Yep. And there's always stories, you know, we live those stories. And that's then on the flip side of that, that's just basically text story. There's no picture of the people or anything. Correct. And I don't mention names or anything. I see. Okay. All right. Good. So. And the newsletter works the same because when they get the newsletter, it's a, it's folded in half. And then one side obviously has my name and my, my picture or my phone number. Again, if they don't read the newsletter, that's fine. It's written the trash, but at least they see it. And that's outsourced. All I do is I just send an Excel spreadsheet of the database I wanted to go to. They take my credit card done. It's five minutes. I don't have to do anything except write a blurb on the back, which by the way, let's talk about that. So I got this idea from Timber Heam probably about 15 years ago. And on, on the newsletter, there's a section which is on the outside. They see, and it says on the home front. And I always do a couple paragraphs about what's going on with me personally. My life and there's always pictures of my family or things we've done. Things that have changed. And it's amazing. I'll often people call you up. It's been two or three years since you talked to them or did a loan for them. And they'll say things like, Oh, you went and did this or, or I saw your daughter with the college. And I, I didn't understand how important that connection was because, I was a single guy and it didn't have the family stuff going on. But, but now it really is a great connection with the clients because they always call them on it. Well, I think the takeaway from that is, is the personal aspect of it. It's the personal connection, like speaking of Timber Heam, right? One of his catchphrases is connection versus conversion. And that's what, that's what's going to, like you said, buy brain cells and get people to remember you. They're going to be like, Oh, look at Dave, right? He's hiking Mount Whitney or whatever. That's cool. And the idea with your consistency, I think of your, your marketing efforts there to the past databases when the time comes, right? If they're thinking, Hey, you know, we got a job change. We might need to X or, you know, Judy's going to college might need to tap that HELOC. Yeah, we want to be in the stream of their, of their, their life, right? Yeah, without a doubt. And, you know, what's really difficult at our business is the competition is crazy. We're just going online or opening up a mobile app while the advertisements and then you've got the major advertisers like quick and out there and all the other ones. And think about the services, right? That by our loans, the servicers are our number one competition because they just have call centers and they're just constantly calling the database of people that we generate it. And, and I think that in the industry, we've probably done a better job than the vast majority of loan officers of staying in contact with our clients. I mean, you know, 25 contacts a year or touches a year. And through that whole refinance boom, still 30% of our clients refinance somewhere else, 30% that we lost. And I'm really good at saying in contact. So think about the average loan officer, they probably lost 70 or 80% of their business. And so, you know, it's, it's two steps forward, three steps backwards. You can't grow your business and keep losing people out of the back end. We never want to lose anybody. That's a great point. And I think you mentioned this at the start, which is it's only going to get tougher as these companies get more aggressive and get more embedded into our lives. And who knows what Amazon, whatever, you know, I mean, it's just a lot more noise. These companies are getting better and better and better. Which means we need to get better. And and here's, and to your point, by the way, about the personal thing on the back of the newsletter, that's what's going to help us win. Increase our batting average is that personal connection because there is no personal connection to quick him. Correct. All right. So 12 snail males, which is a combination of four newsletters and then eight postcards. Correct. And then we do 12 emails. And so now they're getting two contacts a month. So every two weeks they get something. So snail mail email, snail mail email, snail mail email. Don't tell me about the email. Is that automated? What's in it? Um, the email will just sort of sometimes be market conditions. Sometimes it'll be, you know, a new program came out. I had an email. I think the subject line said got kids and then it was talking about, you know, low down payment first time buyer programs, help your kids get out of the house, things like that. Who's, who's writing the email? Is that done for you? Uh, I was doing most of the writing until about a year ago. And then my business partner now is she's doing most of the writing. Well, key point there is it's not some templated, useless, corporate stuff that's spit out. That's completely void of any human element. Right. Well, it's funny. You bring that up because we get all these advertisements from, you know, wholesalers and other companies. And it's the, you know, the embedded HTML and I don't, I just delete, delete, delete, delete. So me personally, I like the plain text email because I'm hoping they're going to open it. I think when we send out the flyer, they get embedded. It's going to be deleted. But then again, I don't do a lot on my mobile phone. So we've had this argument in my office about the best way to do it. Well, let's think about that. You know, once I heard, it's interesting because I stand out of newsletter, obviously for a lot of you listeners, you're getting my, my emails. Um, actually, I don't, it's not actually a newsletter. It's just an email. Um, but once I heard somebody say, you know, about from marketing and what's the best type of marketing, like email at the send. And you think about this is if you were going to send your friend an email, would it be all fancy and glossy and all that kind of stuff? No, right. That's a really good point. Yeah. And so that's why I'm glad I heard what I heard was you people are actually writing the email. Everybody listening knows you sit on your mobile phone, you get those templated corporate thing. I mean, even, you know, um, the companies that I work with, they send those out because they feel like they have to. And I guarantee you that the most low open, low engagement rates people have, what gets noticed, um, is when it's real and raw and you. That's it. Yep, which is that now that made me remember what I was thinking. This came from Ryan Grant. Uh, he calls it meaningful engagement. It's not just touching base with your clients, but actually having that meaningful engagement with them. So then it's more personal. Exactly. And how do you have meaningful engagement? You stop trying to outsource relationships. Yeah. Get real. Let tell people about what's going on. That's why you know, it's funny. I mean, you see those kind of people call it cheesy whenever those, those career font type written newsletters that are black and white and ugly. But that's why that stands out because of the media. That's like, well, crap. This isn't the usual, you know, corporate BS. It looks like David actually wrote this himself. Yep. And that's the idea and that's where trying to come across. Yeah. You also do birthday texts. Yep. We do a text for the birthday. So now, you know, let's think about it. Before we had email, we just had phone calls. New email. Now, email is pretty much history because everybody, you know, deletes our emails. So now we're on the text, right? Now, eventually, text is going to disappear because it's going to be like email where people don't want to get that many texts. But so far, we're doing that as well. And then, um, so that's actually, now we're at 25 touches. Actually, so we have 26 touches a year because the other thing is we do an annual client review. Now, um, we set that up at the beginning when we originated alone. We explained to them that once we close your loan, you're not done with us. From this point forward, our job is to proactively manage a large investment you've taken on in your life. So we talk about how we're going to manage the mortgage, like a financial planner manage assets. I mean, we gave them the debt so we should help them manage that debt like a financial advisor is going to help them manage their assets. Right. So we talk about our rate watch program where we're looking at interest rates for them. And then we also tell them we're going to call you on an annual basis, um, to review your mortgage rather than interest rate market mandates that are not. So in a perfect world, these people should be getting a phone call every 12 months from us. I will tell you, we've been incredibly lame about that. It's so, so busy from 2010 through 2016 that we fell off mostly on that. And I've actually seen my database dropping like I see people that have bought something else or refinanced. And I will blame some of that on that. But I have to take the majority of blame because we didn't do our job. And so just literally in the last 90 days, I've gotten fully focused on doing the end reviews and actually lost a long term person that was on my team. So I've been doing it myself. And it's been, uh, it's been really eye opening. And I really think that that is going to be a huge thing for our business. Eye opening in what regard? How little meaningful engagement we've had with our clients just because we send them a postcard and a newsletter and a birthday text. Doesn't make us any different than anybody else, especially if it was a really easy loan and we have very little interaction with them. They're just thinking of us just as the mortgage person. So by calling them, we are telling them what what we're going to do and then we're doing what we say we're going to do. And I think it's different. I don't think that we're going to see the benefit of this for a year or two because it takes time. Not everybody you call is going to have a need, but at least they're hearing from you. And eight out of ten people go, it goes right to voicemail. It's amazing how people don't pick up the phone probably because they see it's me on caller ID. I don't know. But the people that have picked up, they've not been bugged or offended that I'm bothering them on their cell phone even all the day. Well, yeah, because you're planning the seed in the beginning in the first place. And you may reference that in your script, I don't know. Okay, that's awesome. And that clearly for anybody listening, right? That'd be a great model for you to follow. Now what I'm curious about is how you've pivoted then to integrate some of the more modern touch points if you have, right? Such as fending people on social media. And that's obviously one way to stay connected and stay visible. Anything you're doing in that regard. If I was going to rank myself on a scale of one to ten for social media on a good day, I'd be about four. Okay. That is something that we that we need to work on. I'm looking at your Facebook page and I know you do some other things which I'm going to talk about. And by the way, okay. So if you're new on Facebook, you're already doing a good job. For instance, you are what I can see. They're posting success stories. You've got a picture of this family who just looks like they just bought a home and you're already socializing that. So a lot of people aren't doing that. And let's transition just I guess for a second time. Let's get into what I also jumped out about me about you last time we talked was video testimonials. Okay. That's that's a modern thing. Man, that's cool. You're socializing those. Those are on your web page. And I remember I asked you, how are you getting those? Because when I talk about video with video testimonials, most of the pushback is another hard to get. People don't want to do it. But I want you to share for the listeners, how are you able to get video testimonials? Yeah. I tell you, I really put it off for a long time. And finally, I just had to bear down and do it. So I just went through, we rank in our database or clients and they get marked as either normal rating fan or VIP. So I pulled a list of all my rating fan and VIPs and I went to the list and I looked at all the ones that were local to my office. And I called them up and I said, would you be willing to do this? And just about everybody said, yep, I'll do it. We hired a videographer for a full eight hour day. And we set the videographer and we set up appointments with people to come in and they came and did it. And they got a $10 Starbucks gift certificate for all their time. And you shot those all in one day? All one day. Correct. And I wanted to bust it out. And okay, I tell people what your investment in that was for the videographer. It was really, really expensive. It was about $450. So it was cheap. I mean, the videographer all day now, the editing would be more. We did that in-house through our company marketing department, which cost more. But I would be shocked if it cost any more than $1,000 to do all that. Right. I'd be shocked. And I'm just taking a quick glance at your website and we'll put a link in the show notes. But I'm counting just off a quick glance. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, I don't know, six or eight testimonials. I think we had about six video ones. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Did you have anybody who said no? No one said no. The two people that couldn't do it as they just had scheduled conflicts. And in fact, the one person that said no, I had asked her if she was interested in a couple of months before I set up. She says, oh, I'm in business. I'm more than happy to help you out. And then of course you couldn't do it. But you know, that's okay. Did you have plans to do more? I don't have plans to do more. I probably should. But let me ask you. Think about it. I get butterflies in my stomach thinking about having to do it again. Really? Why? I just, man, you're really asking people to do a lot. I mean, for me, you know, maybe it only took an hour out of their day. They had to get in their car. They had to drive to my office. They had to get out. They had to do it. So maybe it was only an hour out of their life. But I noticed I could be busy. And I felt guilty taking an hour out of people's lives when they were doing nothing but helping me. But maybe that's why they're a raving fan of VIP because they want to help me. Well, there you go. You know, it's funny though. Let's see. That's interesting. There's a lot of us think that we're imposing. And I get that too. I mean, even like when I first started out on these podcasts, I was like, oh, I don't know. Are they going to want to be on? You know, now it's like, come on, man. Right. But I get it. But that just goes to show you that people are so willing to help. You know, especially when you do an amazing job for them, which I know you do, right? There's this thing called reciprocation. People want to help and they feel compelled to give back if you've created an amazing result for them. Yeah. And it's funny. We do a client event. We actually do three client events each year for our database. But what happens is we rent out a movie theater. And we just had it last weekend. And one of the guys that did my testimonial was there. Of course, I had to think of again for, you know, doing the testimonial. Of course, it came to my client event, which was great. I'm going to come back to that movie theater thing in a second. Just make a note here. But one other idea. And this is for really for the listeners as well as, you know, I love the fact you do. It's very polished and professional output of these video testimonials. And that's definitely one way to go. Of course, another way to go. And maybe we'll get to their David is if you're, you know, just pick a few closings to go to. If they're at your, your office or somewhere else. And just write. You can let people know in advance or whatever. Have a tripod. Have your iPhone. And boom. Hey, do you mind if we grab a quick like one minute, you know, tell us about your experience working with the Jaffy team record. It's June and Sam Smith. And we just want to say great. David was out. You know what I'm saying? It could be as simple as that. Well, actually, you know what? It's a great idea is a part of our business plan is when the loan documents are sent to escrow. We always contact escrow and say we prefer that the clients come to our office and sign the documents. Which is how I got the picture of those people. They find documents in my office and I took a picture of it and I posted on Facebook. But talking about a blinding flash, the obvious. Nobody there. Why wouldn't I just do a video? So thank you. Yeah, you bet. I mean, pictures cool too. That's easy. And I'm just, you know, I'm just on the video bandwagon because I just know the impact of video is going to have for people for this business for getting engagement on social media. The algorithms are favoring video. So. And I know we got to break out of our comfort zone on it. Trust me. We all have that comfort zone. But that's where the opportunity is. All right. Real quick. Real quick. Then. Movie theater rental. A couple other top producers have mentioned that as a strategy. And it's one I think it's been off people's radar for a long time. I don't know why. What was the movie you you you invited people to. I think the name was something about the clock in the walls. I can't remember exactly. Yeah, the Disney one. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, that was. It was a bomber because that really wasn't a great movie. Yeah. To get people in. But it just so happened. We needed to get our movie event out. So. Have you better than before? Yeah. Yeah. This is the third world we've done. We did pirates of the Caribbean, which was a much better. Draw for people. Do you do it like once a year or what? Once a year. Yep. And you team up with a realtor is it just for you and your clients? Just me and my clients. So what we do is. We actually have the database segmented. So the first invitation goes out just to our rating fan and VIPs. And then if we don't get enough people, we'll then just open it up. To anybody we've closed the loan for in the last four years. And then we'll open up the whole database and then we'll open it up to referral partners. And is your goal to fill the theater? My goal is to always fill the theater. Yep. You bet. And were you successful on this last one? You know, I got to tell you I'm still a little up in the air. I think we'll continue to do it. We had about 53 people there. But that's families. That really only was 18 different families. But that's still a meaningful engagement with 18 people. And most of those were raving fan VIPs. So it was just another way for me to put a face to a name. So I just think that I think it will pay off. It's relatively inexpensive. It comes out to about 20 bucks a person by Tommy by popcorn and ticket and all that. Yeah. So you're doing it like at a off time. Morning or mid something like that to get a discount, right? Yeah, sorry. Morning 11 am. It's not just kind of much. I got to tell you we're in the wrong business, Jeff. A lot of money to popcorn and soda, baby. That's right. They don't have margin compression. The popcorn business. No. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Cool. All right. Well, in closing it out here, let's do this. I'd be curious to, and you and I touched on this last time. But I'd be curious to get the input from somebody from a $3 billion originator. 28 years in the business. You know, you've seen a lot come and go. I know you're keeping your pulse on where the. Kind of what the direction with the future is. There's some unknowns. But what are you doing? Let's say you're hired me. Okay. I'm a loan officer. Maybe I was in a call center or something. But I come to you with maybe a couple of three years experience under my belt or something. What are you telling me to do or what are you telling yourself to do? To stay relevant in the coming years? I'm going to beat them up from day one about their database. I'm still shocked to this day. How few loan officers and realtors have a database of clothes loan customers. I just, I cannot fathom the fact that people are not doing a database. So I probably would not let them do anything until I saw that that database was set up. I have a lot of people in their database, but they've got five clothes loan that five people they need to stay in touch with. And I would probably recommend they do a quarterly review. Maybe not to review the mortgage every quarter, but to call them at least every quarter. And they would have to do a much better job on social media than I'm doing between Instagram and Twitter and all that other stuff. And then I would also have them try to go after realtors. When I started, realtors controlled about 65% of referrals. Now I think it's down to about 25%. So I wouldn't call that the be all end all, but I think that's a good way to at least get your foot in the door somewhere and try to get some quicker business. As I was just going to say, is that's because that's the now business, the short term. And just let's just reiterate this point for those listeners. You know this well is the path to close the path to success and trust when it's a referral is night and day compared to something you generated online. And so good point there is people say, I've got this great marketing program. I'm doing Facebook advertising. I've got all these great marketing. Our number one marketing program is our service level. I have great service. That's fine. We have great service. But we have a perfect loan process plan in place. And the idea is to allow the customer and the referral partners so much. With working with the Jaffee team throughout the process that it creates a constant string referrals. So you can't just get that deal in the door and you can't just close it on time because that's a given. You have to close it with excellence. You have to be unbelievable from the minute you talk to them through the pre-approved through the home search process from opening escrow all the way through the escrow period and closing. You have to be unbelievable. I agree. And I think a caveat to that, if that's an appropriate word to using what I'm trying to get across here is. But I think you're saying the same thing is, yes, you have to have that five star client experience, but you can't come out of the gates using that as a differentiator. Meaning like scripting to real well, why should I work with you because I have this awesome client experience. Well, until they've gone through that, it sounds like everybody else. Yep, I agree. Awesome. Cool, man. What are you doing to finish out the year strong? I'm reviewing my business plan again to make sure that we are doing everything that we're supposed to be doing on our business plan. I'm getting fully focused on ensuring that we stay on track with calling our database of clients into the annual review. That's something that we're being absolutely brutal about doing. Love it, love it, be brutal about past database. I love that you said it doesn't have to be annual either. Just be quarterly. Just be like, hey, I do a quarterly check up just to see because life changes. So I want to highlight that for people who think, well, I can't call for every 12 months. No, call, right? Just set that up. Set the expectations and advance. Awesome. Okay. I've got 2100 people we're actively doing. And if I'm doing it myself, someone who doesn't have 2100 active people in their database can easily do it by themselves. There you go, structure planning. Well, listen, for those who want to maybe connect with you, what's the best place for them to do that? Email is David at jaffyteam.com. That's David at J-A-F-F-E-Team.com. Awesome. Well, we appreciate you being here as always. Thank you. It was a crash course and lessons from a $3 billion originator. So thank you very much for that. Thanks for having me Jeff. I appreciate it. You bet. And listeners, as always, feel free to reach out to me anytime on Facebook and the group. Email me podcast at Mortgage Marketing Radio. But if you haven't yet left a review, do so, please. That's how we reach more known originators. I appreciate you being here. See you on the next one. Bye for now. Thanks for listening to Mortgage Marketing Radio. One more truth in Mortgage Marketing. You get more free training and resources at MortgageMarketingInstitute.com. Hey, guys. What's up? Real quick. You've heard about the Mortgage Marketing Pro membership before. And you just want to quickly remind you of that. 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