From TikTok to $20M: How Theoni Rapo Built a Consumer-Direct Mortgage Brand

Are you feeling overwhelmed by content creation? Hey, you're not alone. For so many loan officers, the biggest roadblock isn't motivation. It's the mystery of what do I post? How do I make time? And why does it always feel like my polished content falls flat? Now imagine if creating impactful lead generation content didn't require a studio strategy team or even a schedule. Imagine showing up as you are, kids in the background, makeup, have done, mid salad, shop, and building a powerful brand that converts. Well, that's exactly what today's guest has done. You're listening to the mortgage marketing radio podcast where we help mortgage professionals become modern originators and close more loans without coal-calling chasing or paying for leads. My name is Jeff Zimford. I'm your host and marketing coach. Today on the show, we're diving into a crucial question. How do you create content that not only connects but converts without a full production team or getting burnt out? And to help us answer that, we're joined by Thione Rappo, AKA Not Your Daddy's Lender. She went from cringe content to closing over 18 million a year driven almost entirely by TikTok. So in this episode, you're going to learn three key things. How to use content sprints to rapidly grow your audience and sharpen your voice while your phone is your best production tool and the perfect place to capture real resident stories and how AI can become your right hand assistant in refining your message while still sounding like you. Plus, we'll uncover what she thinks about how to turn views into leads and why your personal brand needs to be ready before you go viral. So if you're ready to stop planning and start posting with purpose, then stick around for this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Thione, Not Your Daddy's Lender. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm so, so excited for our chat today. So am I. It's been a long time coming and you are just showing up on my feed with incredible amount of content and sassyness. And that's why I wanted to talk to you about like, you know, because a lot of people see people do different things online with content. People of course struggle with producing content and creating a personal brand. But I want to just start to give me your origin story. So if I'm looking at I'm going to set the stage for people watching and listening right now. So on Instagram, you got and by the way, we're not talking vanity metrics. I just want to give you the context so you can know the work that she's put into this. So Instagram, 27,000 followers of TikTok is the is the big daddy here, 238,000 followers, 2.8 million likes. What the hell's the back story? Give us the origin story and how you, you know, got on this bandwagon. Yeah. So I got into the entry when I was 18. So as you can imagine, social media was just like a part of what I did as just a kid. Anyway, that's like what we all used it for. Once I got to college, I realized that I actually had this job and I went to college at the same time. So I realized I would I was like kind of feeding into people almost borderline making fun of me for the fact that I was learning so much about credit and building equity and like what all this stuff meant that school wasn't teaching us. So I started posting about it on Instagram. And so content has always just been one of those things for me that I'm always thinking about it's so much easier to showcase something to one to many than one to one. And so that was how I started was like I almost got annoyed that we were all in school not learning all these things that I was learning at work. And so I started posting heavily probably I would say like 50 50 was like personal and business when I was in college. Once I graduated college, I learned that I it was so much easier for me to do that than cold call or sit with realtors that like I have nothing in common with and I was 20 years old at the time. I didn't know what a 54 year old top producing agent like liked or what they would talk about. So I saw social media as my outlet. But I knew it was a long term play because no one was in the like in that space yet, especially not on TikTok. So TikTok I used for a year before anything popped off. But it was just me like having fun and learning as I went. And I knew it would because it's a numbers game just like sales, just like calls, just like anything else were taught. But that is kind of how I started getting into it. And just like the last two years have I now organized systems and have analyzed my content to a point where I have it down to a T. But for at least three years, I was just I really was just winging it. So you got into the industry in what year? 2016 2016. And you started implementing in in a real way social media. What year? 2019. Is that correct? So so today, what is your primary source of business? Definitely TikTok. TikTok in 20. So I'm just pulling up redder here. So in 2024, it looks like you did about 40 loans for roughly 15 mil. Is that sound accurate? Yeah. So here this this is like the fun part of this side of things. I used to say I love it because no one will ever know my real numbers. But that was before I was like doing the numbers. And now that I am, it's hard. So I started at a bank and I was a loan partner essentially. So there were some that would go into my name, some that wouldn't. And then I do because I started at a bank, I made myself out to be the lender that does lending in all 50 states because a lot of my content was revolving around that because I could for a long time. So now I get loans in every state, but they don't all go into my name. So I'm working on getting the licenses. Finally, the last like year and a half, I've been working on getting all of the licenses so that my production that is on these apps is actually accurate. Right. That's why I was kind of unpack this. And I don't want people to just focus on the numbers. But did you want to correct me then for 2024? Or if you factor in all those other additional loans that weren't necessarily, you know, attached to you was was the volume something different? I probably did around 18 to 20 million in 2024. All right. Total. And your number one source is TikTok. Okay. Let's unpack this. How do you get business from TikTok? Let's just say I'm a loan officer, you know, as you know, the average age of a loan officer is probably 50 something. But we have some obviously younger folks like yourself who've come in the industry. But I would say most aren't getting business from social media, let alone TikTok. Would you agree? Yeah, definitely. Okay. So let's start with what do you want to pass on to them that you might think might be you know, directional or instructional for them of was there a process you went through and you crossed the bridge and like lights go on and that, you know what I mean? Yeah. I think that when I started to make content, I tried to remove the realtor too much. And so I was so focused on building my content that it almost was like hatred towards realtors instead of like it sounds fun. It sounds funny, but like I obviously I love realtors and I do like I work with I work with a few that I found actually on TikTok that have referred me now and we work closely together. But I think that would be the biggest change is that take TikTok and social media is an end to your business. It's not the only thing. I was very lucky in the position that I was in when I started and I'll be transparent. I was a salaried employee because I was a loan partner. So I had the and the advantage to still like finesse and kind of build my platform as I was still getting paid whereas I know a lot of loan officers maybe don't have that right now. It's it's either do or die. And so I think that they think of content as oh, I need to sprint through this so that I can see the results, but it should be an end. When I started switching over to thinking about how can I be a better advisor to agents and to people who direct a consumer. That's when I started seeing stickier clients, right? Because I was at one point getting anywhere between 25 to 70 leads a week and that sounds great. But if those leads were down payment assistance or people I didn't align with or just straight rate shoppers that thought I was the cheapest lowest rate or whatever it wasn't it didn't matter. So I started switching the narrative a little bit where I would start to talk to people who were already pre-approved or maybe working with an agent or a lender that they didn't like or just somebody who wanted the service behind. And so I think that that's what a lot of people are missing out on. They want to be the Google instead of the advisor. And I think with being the advisor and the most smartest, you know, per I always say I'm the best lender I know and that's just how I show up on my content. But once I started switching that in my content, I started seeing a much bigger conversion and these leads that I was bringing in and also where I was getting my business from. That's an interesting point you make. I've actually been doing some studying lately on some of my content strategy and preparing to put some stuff out on YouTube specifically. And one of the things that I've come across is and you can swipe this if you want, but I call it the buyer readiness ladder or the mortgage readiness ladder. And to your point, yeah, who is your content attracting? And if your content is attracting all those DPA bad credit types of people, what I'm hearing from you is you shifted your content to be more aligned with the people who've already gone through the process and know that they can buy a house and now they're just looking for the right person to work with. Correct. Yes. That's correct. So maybe less leads but better quality. Correct. And I think that it's hard because we're so used to being yes, women and men in the industry. So then when you know, you remove that, you're like, well, you know, it's not that I won't help those people and I get that. But if it's between me or a different loan officer and it's a DPA, I'm not the best loan officer for that because I don't do them. And I don't, I definitely don't do them enough to actually help somebody through that process. And so there's always going to be a lender that is better equipped for those things. And I think it's giving yourself permission to like, that's okay. There's other lenders that that's all they do. But more people need the advisory that comes with being a little bit more niche as well. So is that a conscious decision? Let's say you get some DPA people and you're like, you know, some LLs will take them, they'll put them into the nurturing funnel for a year or whatever until they become ready. And you're just like, no, I don't do that, but here I can refer you to somebody. So I think the way that now I have my content, I don't get the leads at all in my funnel. Yeah. So I mean, I've made, I've made content before where I just call DPAs a scam because I personally just think they are. I, you know, I just, I just think that they are. I had, when I first got in the industry, I felt like I had to do them. So I've had a good, a good amount of experience with them. It was very interesting, though, because it was right in 2019, when I started getting my own friends and leads and things like that, then 2020 and 2021 happened. And none of those people could refinance their rate because of the DPA. So I kind of just have a bad taste in my mouth for the DPAs because of that. So you used to post them content about that about why DPAs are bad, so to speak? Yeah. I mean, I straight up call them a scam on my TikTok. So you kind of have to by the way, that's another lesson in content. As you, I'm sure, well, no, it's like you got to take a stand, right? You've got to become known for something. And sometimes just having that, that polarizing opinion is what attracts people to you. Yeah. I mean, I actually have a community called not your daddies creator community. And one of the presentations I'm working on now are hooks and getting really good at your hook. And so usually what you just said, my hooks are very polarizing because that is I first take a stand in whether or not you want to agree or disagree, you usually listen for the whole video. And so I've made another one on how, you know, the American dream is dying and that people aren't owed like everybody deserves a home, but not everybody deserves a mortgage. And those have been my hooks that have been popping off recently. Well, that's an interesting one. Not everybody deserves a mortgage. And that's because, I mean, obviously, I have to qualify, right? Number one, what's your position on that I'm curious? Well, I think that what I'm seeing is so many people get angry at the economy and the way of the world. And I just think it's like a victim mindset. And it's nobody talks about the victim mindset when it comes to mortgages. Because again, we all want it to feel achievable. And we want to deliver good news all the time, of course. But then there are also some people that, you know, right now are like barely qualifying, maxing out their debt to income ratio, you know, you've been working them for six months and they're like buying other cars or they're doing other things with their credit cards. And so I'm like, maybe you just maybe like it's not the smart move. Like you deserve a home. You deserve some word. You deserve shelter. Yeah. Right. Exactly. You deserve the shelter. But I don't know. And so when you kind, I've been delivering that kind of news because again, I really think of myself as an advisor first. And so I have probably more access to people's finances than their financial advisor does, right? They can't pull credit. They can't see what's on there. They just have to trust that what they're saying is actually accurate. So I kind of have been having a lot of those conversations recently where I tell people, I don't know if taking out a mortgage makes sense for you because it's you're already tight and now you're getting tighter if I if I actually help you follow through with this. It's a responsibility, right? And I'm not sure you're at that stage where you might be ready for that responsibility. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, everybody wants to buy a house at like 520 credit with $10. And I'm like, that's that's mature. Yeah. Well, it's it's just shows a lack of understanding for how things actually work. You know, to what degree have they self educated themselves about how how things actually work? So I think that's an interesting position. Yeah, like it. I want to go back for a second to when you said earlier about how some of your content early on was kind of beating down the agents. Can you explain a little bit more what you mean about that? And then what was the actual shift? Yeah. So I used to make content about how it made no sense to go to realtors first. And I still kind of believe this. I'm not like totally not. But I think we're the only country in the world that that's usually how it works because I used to have people in from Canada comment and be like, what do you mean? Like here you go to your lender first and they refer the agent. And so everywhere else, it seems like instead of the lenders chasing the realtors, it's the realtors that are chasing the lenders because people just go to the lender first to get their finances in order. And so that's kind of like would make a lot of content on that because I tried to go direct to consumer and still am going direct to consumer. But when I started shifting that to just talking about the strategies behind why an agent is important and why a lender is important and kind of like how you work together instead of just being like come to me first and I'll tell you everything you need. I just like, no gate, I just didn't gatekeep any of that information. So when I started posting about that, I would see that more realtors that were aligned with how I work also ended up in my DMs. But a smart play. And I think it speaks to, you know, this thing that we've been wishing or hoping was different for a long, long time, which is that I want them to come to me first. Well, I mean, I haven't seen that happen. And I've in this in this since 2003. And who knows if it's ever going to have malicious face it people, they want the house first. That's the first top of the funnel thing they go through. Let me let's search. Let's get in Zilla. Let's do this. Let's go to open out like all that stuff. And then eventually, yeah, honey, we're ready. Let's get serious. And then we look at our financing, right? Correct. Right. Exactly. And that's fine too. I think that I just, I was just young and like angry because I had also been told that to be successful in this industry, you have to go on coffee dates and you have to spend lunches and I'm not saying those things don't work. But when I did them, I just didn't find anything in common with a lot of the top producers in my area. I just didn't really, I didn't vibe. Okay. No, fair enough. Okay. So how many agents do you work with roughly right now? Probably like eight to 12 consistently. Consistently. Right. Right. Right. Right. I was going to clarify because it's an open need to clarify that a little bit more because you can have 20 or 30 agents, but they're not sending you any business, right? Are you actively prospecting agents in any way or are they just being attracted to your content? Just attraction. Yeah. That's pretty much it. Are you getting agents outside of your market as well? Definitely. So it's kind of hard. I actually probably do more outside of my market. I just live on the beaches of Delaware, but I don't do as much on the beaches of Delaware than when I did when I was with a bank. At that point, it was more like second homes like I just did around here. But once I started getting on TikTok, I basically do everywhere. So my top three biggest states are probably Cali, Texas, Florida, and then Maryland. And you have agent partners that you work within those states outside of your state. Yeah. And how do you find that it goes? I want to I want to address the the perception that, you know, I think there's value to building your base in your backyard first. But I also want to address this little this little issue of like can you grow your business referral business Asian referral business? Look at your 3000 miles away from Maryland, California. Like how does that work? I mean, I think it's just staying on top of them. I don't know. I don't know of an era, maybe because I entered just all digitally first. I don't know how to really work when you're constantly meeting people in person. Now I'm a mom too. I don't even have the time. So I think it's just staying in front of them and checking in like my check ins are constant. And a lot of times I work with people and real estate agents that are also on social. So our check ins are because they're posting about their daily lives. And now I have something to slide into their DMs about and I'm talking to them about it. And every single week I have Mondays or my pipeline updates. So I call them sometimes I don't even have to call them because I'm already in their DMs. So I'm just kind of piggybacking. It feels so fun to do it that way that I don't really have to like fit the time to do, you know, to stay ahead of them because I feel like I'm already in front of them on social media. It's like my online business card. Well, I really wanted to just expand on that for a moment because I know there's some people listening right now that are that are thinking. How can I expand outside of my my back yard, my footprint? And this is why we're seeing more L.O.'s get licensed in different states because in today's world you can grow your case and point proof of that. The difference is, though, you've got this personal brand, this place online where they can because if you didn't have your presence on TikTok or wherever else, like none of these California texts, they wouldn't know you exist, right? No. So you'd have to be reaching out to them, which again goes back to the point of why you should have a personal brand, why you should be putting content out there is because you can do exactly what the only did. Exactly. Yeah. And I also think that it's a it's a nice reminder that people just want to work with confident people and when you're not confident, like when I'm confident in calling listing agents in California and saying, you know, I have this and this and this, very few ask like, oh, where's your office? Are you local? Like there are a couple, of course, there are people who care about that. But once you give them the assurance that you're confident, you know what you're doing, you've done this before, you've worked in these areas before, then like that's all they really need. And I know that that's a hesitation for a lot of lenders that I have talked to is, you know, how do you how do you say that you know, like what you're talking about in those areas? And I'm like, I think the realtor can focus on being the expert of like the local and then I can focus on being the expert in the advisor when it comes to your finances. Yeah. I mean, let's just face it on our side. It's it's math. You know what I mean? Does it work out? Does the appraisal come in, right? Yeah. All right. Well, that's that's good. And I just wanted once again, for everybody listening, this is again, why if you're like, oh, you know, personal bread like content and you know, get over it because this is how you're going to expand and grow your business outside of. And by the way, I remember I interviewed, um, I don't know if it was Jennifer, Jennifer Beast in a long time ago, you know, her, she's, uh, I heard that name. Yeah. So she's the number one VA lender in the country. She's got a massive YouTube channel. She gets over 150 applications per month from YouTube. Uh, several years I interviewed her. But one of the points I think it was her that said this was, um, the advantage of diversifying your sources of business because if one state below falls off the map, look California fires, like let's just say you were your, your market was LA. Well, you know, what are you going to do in the fires in LA or your market was Florida or this or that? Like that's the cool thing about diversifying across multiple states is you're not subject to all those local economic, right? shifts. Right. Exactly. Okay. So let's unpack your content now. Um, all right. I gotta ask, not your daddy's lender. Like, well, why? Where'd that come from? So a couple of years ago, I was talking to Ginger Bell, if you know who that is. Yep. So me and her were talking about something. I was with Annie Mac, a different company at the time. We were talking about something and she was like, man, your team really does things like kind of crazy, like in a different way. And I was like, yeah. And she goes kind of like, you know, it's not your grandfather's way of thinking of this problem. Or she said something like that. And I was like, not your grandfather's. And then I just kind of changed that word a little bit. And I was like, I guess we kind of are like, not your daddy's. And so I filtered that down to, you know, people love that word. And it's, it's so funny and so uncomfortable for some like grown men to, to say it even sometimes like in my DMs, they'll be like, because I use it as key points to get PDFs or different, you know, resources. Right. But I think it's so true that I personally feel like I'm not the lender that your dad told you to go to. And I thought that was my avatar for a long time. And it was like the 26 year old corporate girl when, you know, I just thought that she had everything that I could do to help until they came with their dad. And their dad was like, wait, I'm giving you all the money for your gift or the down payment or whatever. And then they would leave me last minute. So then I became even more invested in that brand because I was like, I'm really not your daddy's lender. Oh, I see what you mean. They left you last minute after they got all the information and they went somebody daddy preferred. Correct. Mmm. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So who is your avatar right now, your ideal client profile? So I have a little bit of a different stance on avatars. I think after that, I decided it wasn't a person. It was a pain point. And that pain point is kind of what I said in the beginning. Somebody who's already pre-approved, they, you know, they are ready to go in terms of like buying a house, but they're not getting the advisory that they need. They don't feel like they're getting the service that they need. So you can be a 26 year old corporate girlie to do that. Or you could be a 40 year old selling your, you know, your second home to buy another second home or whatever the case is. And so when I showed up talking to the pain point, I envision these people scrolling anxiously on their couch at night. And I'm trying to meet them exactly where they are at that point. Do you know what the kind of the age range is for your target client? Does it tend to be younger? Probably, yeah, like 30 to 40, probably. Maybe even younger, I feel like, yeah, probably like 25 to 40. Mostly first-timers. Mostly first-timers, but recently, I found a lot of like buying a house to buy the, or selling their house to buy another. So a lot of move up, move down buyers too. But yeah, I guess I would probably say like now it's a mix, probably 50, 50, a first-time home buyers and move up buyers. Okay. All right. Let's switch into the actual leads you mentioned a moment ago. 25 to 70 leads per week. How do you quantify or qualify? What is a lead? Is there some type of an opt-in process you have? What does that look like? Yeah. So my husband owns a real estate marketing company. And so two years ago, he created a landing page for me because I was getting so many emails or I was just getting so many applications. But then these people wouldn't qualify or they were just looking to see if they could get approved for anything. But their timeline was for a while. And so now I have a landing page that asks them, I dialed it back to like eight or nine questions. But it used to be like 18 questions and people would actually fill it out, which is crazy. And now by the time that they get into my system, if their credit score is below 620, there's a different button that they fill out. And that goes into our nurture. But I'll talk to anybody who's credit score is 620 and above. And then they schedule a call with me. After the call, then I send them the link to actually fill out an application. Because then I know a little bit about timeline or if they are good lead. So for the call booking, it's just automated through calendar or something. It's through the system that he created. But yeah, it shoots them a text to let them know. And then it drips them every day until they do book a calendar time. Got it. Okay. So using automation there, which scales great, they pick a time on your calendar that you've been available. Okay. Cool. Yeah. I'm looking, we'll link this up with the show notes. By the way, so you can kind of follow the trail there. I'm looking at the link off of your TikTok and it clearly gives you a bunch of different options. What is not your daddy's community? Is that for loan officers, you said? Loan officers and real tours. Yep. And so what you're teaching them there about content, social media, all that. Yeah. Just kind of like take. So I have a creator division at Summer House mortgage group. We just joined cross country mortgage. And I just launched it in November. And so every week I do a call with the creator loan officers that are on the team. I just started it right. So there's only three of us now. But eventually my idea is if I'm already doing the work to like teach people how to get on social, how to do all this, then I might as well pull back the curtain. And those weekly calls are just open to anybody else who wants to join. All right. Very cool. Okay. Let me get into some of the content. And here I am looking at your TikTok page. And I'm looking at some of your your pinned posts. Did you pin those for a specific reason? Yes. So here I'm going to open up with you. Sure. I can tell you what they are everyone. That first one I believe has what for 2.4? 4.9 million on the first one. Yep. So that one is about a living a living trust. And I didn't even know about a living trust until probably like a year and a half or so ago. Once I like learned about it, I was like why am I not telling more people about this? This is so important. And then it was funny because then I had probate issues on some of my loans. And I was like, wow, this is crazy. So that one I think is just very important for anybody and everybody to know. I partnered with a company called Get Dynasty that gives them out for a dollar. So you can create one for a dollar, which is pretty cool and very. A living trust. Yeah. Really a dollar. Yep. Get Dynasty is the it's actually linked in my bio. So instead of me doing like a brand partnership collab with them, they could just like cut the cost if I have that link. And I'd rather that because that's not really I'm not trying to be an influencer with collab deals and brand deals. I just want the information to go out to as many people as I can. So I think that that one's important. And obviously by the views, I think people understand it or are starting to understand it. Everybody knows what a will is, but not everybody knows what a living trust is. So that one's purposeful to just get that information out there. The next one, the Biden stepping down is just a good I think like. So that one I posted two, three days after I came home from the hospital with my daughter. She's in my lap in that video. I hadn't showered in a couple days. Like that news had just broken out. And I was post-partum, tired as crap, hadn't showered. And I was like, I need to tell people like what this means for rates. And especially around the time that the feds had said that they were going to cut in September. And so there was like all these different things floating around. So I just showed up and I posted that video. And so I have it pinned because I want other loan officers and other agents or whoever to know that I was like, I looked like crap. It was like my messaging. And the fact that I gave assurance to people who were clearly googling and searching for these terms of what that meant if they were looking to buy a house during that time in one of my like most vulnerable states. Like I was I just had a baby. So I have that pinned because obviously it resonated with a lot of people and they understood what happens when things like that happen in politics to the rates. But also at the same time it showed that like you don't have to be prim and proper and the app actually works in your favor if you don't. 100% yeah love that. And congratulations by the way on the courage to just post. It was a fun time. And then the next one is my reviewing the loan estimate. And I still probably get like anywhere between 20 to 30 leads. I'd say a month on people who want me to review their loan estimate sheet. So I have that pinned up there. So if they come to my profile from another video and they're under contract they know that I have that ability to review. Really? So do they also schedule a time with you to review that? No. So that one usually obviously because they're under contract. So they get a text message to ask them what time works best for them today and tomorrow or tomorrow. So they respond with a couple of times and then I squeeze those in after I review them if I can help them. Sorry. Go ahead. Did you hear my audio? No. Okay. I was playing your video. Oh, I didn't hear it. That's just a special brilliant idea right there. That is a swipeable because you know we've seen people use those occasionally but I'm going to go back to your actual main feed here. So that's an idea. And by the way this is why you want to go check your profile out on TikTok because this is a clinic or a case study in topics of what to post. Now not everything right like your big sister advice. I'm buying a home like of course if you're a guy you're not going to do that right but you could do your big brother advice but more importantly just the two ideas we talked about right now about living trust because we have a lot of financial knowledge that a lot of people don't and we can parlay that. Secondly the low estimate thing is just like wow banger like every you know most people don't even friggin understand what a low estimate means. And then there's just a couple other here that jumped out at me waving your hands. I actually just remembered this too on that slide in one I talked about being on my refinance list to get alerts if the rates drop and so I actually do get people who sign up still for my refinance list. I was wondering I was like why did I else had that pin like there was a third reason. So that one has my refinance list sign up too. Love it and I can see a couple others real quick here. You have a strike rate. Everyone who owns a house should let me just go back to the headline. Everyone who owns a house or wants to buy needs a strike rate right now brilliant. And then the next one I love this is a really good positioning. Rates don't care that you're waiting for them to go down to buy smart smart. So let's talk about that. How do you come up with your content ideas? Is there a structure? Are you weighing it and shooting from the hip and let's just grab the phone and go or what does that look like? Yeah so as you can probably imagine we as loan officers have a lot of conversations in the day and we usually get like wound up when we are very passionate about something that happens whether it's good or bad on the phone call. I take all of that and I just create the content. Like I don't wait for my next content day. I don't like try to schedule it. I just I get off the phone with somebody and I'm like why don't more people know that? Like what do you mean you don't know what an escrow is? Like you don't know what an appraisal gap? You haven't figured out how that works. And it comes from of course they don't know because there's not enough information. So then you become that person that has the piece of information on the internet. 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Now back to our show. So let's talk about your content strategy. How do you go from idea to post to like walk us to because you know that's the biggest challenge for a lot of people? What do I post? How do I get it out there? My production process, all that. How do you do it? Yeah so I'm very there's a word and it'll come to me at one point. I think like I just I go with the moment. So when I when I talk to people all the time I mean we're constantly on our phone. So we all have conversations. People can feel when you make a certain type of content and they know if it's dundering a content like content day that's been planned or if it's true where you just got off the phone with somebody and you cannot believe that they didn't know the IRS tax payments is you know something we add to our debt or that you know something like that. And so I take the momentum that I get and I gain from the calls that I'm on and then I just go and create the content. So a lot of my TikTok content as you can see is me just showing up wherever I am. Sometimes I'm in the car. Sometimes I'm I'm a mom of two. So sometimes it's in the bathroom getting ready. Sometimes it's me cutting a salad. Sometimes it's eating ice cream after I get the kids down and wherever I am that's just where I post the content because people can feel that. So I just allow my daily talks to be part of my content. Now I do have a notes section in my phone that if for some reason I cannot make a piece of content at the time I will write it down and then I just go back to it that same day if not the next day because I want that same feeling to be in my content when I create it. Yeah that's very smart and I don't have to say that I'm not good at that. I'm not good at the in the moment grab the phone and record even though the few times that I've done it it's probably gotten more views than the kind of polished and prepared stuff not to say you can't get views with the other kind of you know structured stuff. But the point being is what you're trying to I think I highlight is people really love the authenticness right the connection like this is just really this is the only in the moment like like you said it wasn't overpublished. Correct. But how many what is your content posting schedule look like how frequent? So I'll do these things called content sprints and that's when I'm trying to really bring in the leads and also like to get in the flow of it myself so that'll be on TikTok. If you want to grow on TikTok what you should be doing is content sprints it's two videos a day for two weeks. It sounds like a lot but when you do that your account will grow and you just get better at being a communicator you get better at seeing yourself hearing yourself you get better at telling stories and it's a two-week sprint and then you have what I call like bingeable content where you can go back and study on your own content and see like what worked and what didn't. Instagram I always have a story up and I'll probably post one to two reels a week. Okay and are you posting different content as your reels or repurposing the same video from TikTok to Instagram? Yeah I think of Instagram and TikTok a little bit differently so I don't really repurpose a whole lot. TikTok likes to see you kind of like looking like you do every day they don't like the prim and proper they don't like you know they just they as close to a FaceTime call as it can be on TikTok is what they like so when I've tried a repurpose it just doesn't perform very well on TikTok you have to earn every single view so just because I have 200 some thousand followers doesn't mean that that many people are always gonna be seeing it it's a little bit different than Instagram on Instagram they do like you to be a little bit more like professional looking and prim and proper and I think a little bit less every year but it still is kind of the baseline there so I see TikTok as my lead generations where I get most of my leads and then I see Instagram as my nurture it's where I nurture the community that I have which is why I have so fewer than TikTok but the people who follow me on Instagram are much stickier because they know more about my life I do not post about my kids or really my life on TikTok as much but I will on Instagram and then okay that's cool all right so then most of your content then is you'll do the sprints and things like that but you're not necessarily having a batch film day right no yeah we used to as a as a branch we might get back into it we kind of took a little relapse after I had my daughter and then I couldn't really get back into it but it was a great way to get the team together they were fun but that shouldn't be your only source of content so even though we would do that as well the like talking head style it wouldn't be the only thing that we post because if you only have talking head style no one's gonna resonate with that you kind of look like a bot you look like not a real person because there's no kind of like day in the life oh this is like her in her average day everything's like polished and appropriate all that right do you use any AI tools in regards to content scripting idea generation let's take that before we get into editing but just be out of that the only thing I probably will use is a chat UBT knows my voice when it comes to how I speak on my TikTok videos so if there's ever a topic like I'm actually working on one right now about inspectors and it was an inspector who I talked about who I talked to and he said something like of course inspection reports are gonna have something on them but people get spooked so easily but if we give you a report that has nothing on them then you know you would feel like you just got ripped off because you just paid for an inspection report nothing showed it and all the things and I was like how do I turn that into you know relevant to what I teach and what I know and so I fed that to chat UBT and I've done a lot of work where I've taken transcriptions of my videos and then fed it to chat UBT so it knows my style it knows how I talk and then I've like asked it when I get stuck on how to deliver and when I ask it how to deliver it's how do you how can I make this a FaceTime call to my best friend who has no idea about anything related to real estate and so that's been really cool I use it all the time for pretty much everything so it's really cool that it knows when to plug in other pieces of my life as well which has been nice so the more I use it the more I feel like it just knows me it's my like little assistant do you ever I'm curious I've been experimenting with this myself lately is I will take videos from other creators not necessarily in the industry either from outside and there's a you know kind of a framework you can prompt GBT for taking this idea which which you know got a lot of engagement and repurposing that have you ever experimented with that no that's interesting yeah it's pretty cool I feel like I feel like it would probably spit out some pretty interesting things because there's I mean there's a framework for any video to perform if you want it to perform right exactly all right don't want to go off the rails there that be a separate podcast I do okay real quick then the difference in terms of posting your you're doing mostly shorts right my videos are probably like on average two to four minutes long okay all right well they're pretty long yeah sure a quick tip on let me just go to your reels here on Instagram what I've always been curious about this and it looks like this is just a straight up in the moment question you know this whole premise that your thumbnails for your short videos should have a headline on it right or kind of selling the short you know what I mean you have any take on that because I'm looking at some do some don't so is this just you're just like no I'm just posting then it's working you mean the pin post no any post like some of your posts have like you know the caption on the video frame I'm not your daddy's lender or what is another one here closing closing costs explained you know on Instagram I probably could be better about doing it on TikTok I'm very religious about it because I have so much content that I like to think when somebody finds me they binge my content and so I try to make it as easy as possible for them to it's almost like a Netflix series you want to know what that's going to be about yes so I would I would imagine if you're doing my method on TikTok on Instagram you should be doing that but it's a little different my my content is not the same as it is on both platforms right and I could just say so the way the Netflix thing 100% like I'm here on my desktop and I'm scrolling your TikTok and it allows me to look at the titles which is basically like browsing Netflix oh does this look good right so that's a key point by the way for a lot of people I need to get better better at that as well is like yeah you gotta you gotta understand where's the consumer coming in if there's no like captions square headline thing on your video frame for that you know scroll probably a scroll right by it yeah exactly what is it so it's a cool face let me click for three seconds right right exactly that's all good stuff oh so you don't just to hammer this home you're not you're not putting content creation in a calendar right no yeah well okay so a lot of people's minds are just like wait what how do you do that and how do you close loans are like how do you do it all I have an amazing team I will shout out to my team who we've built this thing the last three years and it's been a lot of leads and no conversion and then some conversion little leads so it's really cool to get to a point where now I it's almost like a faucet that you can turn on how much comes in and how much doesn't I know I'm very thankful for that but that's also something that I've been building for a long time and finally I like the last year have been seeing some true results and fruits of my labor after tweaking so much so you know just as easy as it probably looks because I'm so established now just know that I started somewhere too with the cringy videos and watching my videos have also been cringy when I first started so everybody starts somewhere but just like anything that you do any plan of action takes a little bit of time and so I'm just thankful that finally you know three four years later of creating I'm seeing some serious results in my business yeah I want to tap on that real quick for a second so to set that frame for people because I think that's what they're not prepared for or they want to try it like I'm going to try social media I'm going to try posting seven videos and see what happens yeah what would you how would you coach them on what to expect for timeline so I always say that if you can't integrate social media into your day-to-day life at least like getting good with stories or you know picking something then it's never going to work for you because of the energy that's behind it if your energy behind it is a it's a to-do list item well it's just like laundry right like nobody gets excited about laundry so no one's going to get excited about the video that you post if it's just a to-do thing on your you know on your list and so I think that I hear that a lot too and I think it's just a choice like some people choose to call real estate agents nobody chooses to call real estate agents for one week and then never again so I don't know why we're doing the same thing with social media you're either going to choose to do it and you're in it for the long haul or you choose not to and then you find something else to do wow there's there's my highlight clip right there okay let me close out on this I've been having conversations with people about this premise where there seems to be an emphasis and focus on quote unquote going viral and the conversations I've been having with some people are where there seems to be a focus on views versus conversion and I'm wondering like how would you respond to I know I didn't give you much specifics around that but I know you're wise enough in this to know where I'm going and what is what is your hot take on that yeah um I love this question so much because I for a long time when people ask me like why I started creating content no one will tell you the truth but I just wanted to go viral like I just wanted to be as famous as I could be and that sounds awful now because obviously that has changed but when I first started that was the push that got me through creating so much after no results no results no results so like just to say that if that's your push is going viral right now that's great but if you go viral right now I always ask people is your is your page set up for that because mine wasn't I posted a whole year and I went viral and I didn't have a link in bio I didn't have a contact I converted nothing I got like 250 emails of people being like help me can you help me here I have this situation and I couldn't do anything with that so everybody wants to go viral but nobody understands that there's like systems behind these things are our landing pages you need there's calendar setups like your page has to have enough content that when or if something goes viral they can go to your page and they see that you are an expert in what you're saying and what you're doing so that is the part that people don't think about because they think if I go viral like it's easy for the only to say all these things because she goes viral all the time she gets all these leads but I also have systems in place that allow me to convert so going viral shouldn't be the thing you really focus on even though it's probably the thing that gets you through creating because you're like oh maybe it's this one because you don't know which one it's going to be right you don't you have no idea which one takes off but then also at the same time if you are just creating content you'll start to build an audience that is so aligned with your messaging and what you're what you're creating and you've probably seen this a room of a thousand people is a lot of people so a thousand followers you're talking to those people and on Instagram it's a little different because it really is that many people that you're talking to and that many people that see your content take talks different like I said you earn every single view so you're talking to new people so if you're starting out and you're thinking oh I need to go viral maybe start with your Instagram community first because that's a lot of people that most most people have that many followers so it's always about going deep it's not going wide but if you're trying to go wide make sure your accounts are primed to be able to convert and actually benefit from all of the content you're putting out there love that great lesson great lesson well on that note let's just put a cap on that and just say the only thank you so much for taking time for your busy day a lot of wisdom here thanks for sharing it with our community thank you so much for having me we're going to put the links to your TikTok and your Instagram in the show notes but if you want to go there right now it's the only the lender on both TikTok and Instagram but check the link in the show notes and by the way if you DM her and just let her know share one takeaway you got from this episode let her know that you heard it here and you know what impact she made for you today so yeah I love that my DMs are always open awesome everybody thanks for tuning in you know to do if you like this episode hey share it with somebody or leave us a review that we'll see on the next one bye for now okay that's it for today's episode before we wrap up I just wanted to remind you about my agent classes you're proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days imagine never having to co-call again instead building real lasting relationships with top producing agents who want to send you business with done for you presentations marketing automation weekly coaching it's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun so if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income visit mortgage marketing dot pro or check the link in the show notes and why you're there don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen incredible results thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode