From Vendor to VIP: Build a Brand Agents Chase (Not Ignore)

Are you tired of chasing agents who ghost your coffee invites? Do you ever feel like you're break dancing for a shot at a deal while they're sipping your eight dollar latte and scrolling their phone? Imagine for a moment flipping the script. Picture this. Agents coming to you because you've built a platform they trust and a community they want in on. Wanted to give a quick shout out to one of our major class members, Jenelle Davis, she's built a legit local in-person community of real estate agents. And just last week, she hosted a small class for real estate agents all about VA home loans. And afterward, an agent whom she's never met before or spoken with totally impressed by the value in the vibe of the community and what Jenelle provided asked Jenelle to help her son buy home with 10% down fast forward. They've talked. He's pre-approved and the referrals already under contract. That's the power of community and that's what happens when you stop cold pitching and start attracting. That's exactly what we do for loan officers across the country in our platform called my agent classes. And if you want to learn more about what we do and how we do it and if it's a right fit for you, I've opened by calendar up again. For a short window, I am taking one on one calls and having conversations with qualified loan officers whom this might be a fit for. So what you need to do if this sounds interesting to you is go to the link in the show notes and click the link to go ahead and book a call with me or go to mortgage marketing.pro and grab a time on my calendar. We'll get connected and see if we're right fit for each other. Okay, so you're listening to the mortgage marketing radio podcast where we help you grow your business without cold calling chasing, paying for leads or being seen like a vendor. My name is Jeff Zimffer and today we're diving into a big question, how do you stop chasing agents and start building something so valuable they come to you to help us break that down. I'm bringing back a rare repeat guest, my good friend Arjun Dingra and he's a 24 year mortgage vet. He's a national speaker, martial arts coach and the founder of a fast growing movement that's blending personal brand community and real estate into something big. It's called the LFG community and in this episode, here's what you'll take away. Why F coffee is your new mantra for attracting, not begging. How to stop playing small and start showing up like a peer, not a vendor and how to build a tight knit tribe of agents who refer you business and respect your time plus you'll hear the crazy, true story of how a contract mixed up with Ryan Sirhan gave birth to the LFG brand. So good you got to hear this. So if you're done being overlooked and you're ready to build something magnetic, lock into this episode, this is mortgage marketing radio. Let's F and go. Arjun, welcome back to the show. Thanks brother. It's been, yeah, it's been years, I think four years, five years. I think so. But I think the point I wanted to make why I stress that welcome back is for anybody listening or watching is when you're invited back a second time, that puts you in rare error, you know? So shout out. But I appreciate that Jeff, not respect for what you do for our industry. So thank you, man. Well, you know, I mean, my goal is to bring valuable conversations to people that can help them grow their business, break through any challenges they have, learn and continue to evolve. And you're somebody who I've been watching obviously for five plus years who's continuing to learn and evolve. And we're going to unpack all the things you're doing to build a media brand in your business. But what do you want to give for anybody who may not be familiar with you? The quick, you know, 30 seconds, 60 second max, you know, story about our zoom. There was an emphasis on max, so I'm going to go quick. Yeah. Well, so guys, I'm in the industry for 24 years, originally from Nevada and I live in the Bay Area. My background is in martial arts. So I spent, I've spent 30 plus years in Taekwondo and I coached Team USA for 10 years and competed for seven. My voice is a little crackly because I literally landed last night back from Barcelona. And I went for just 72 hours to go help coach some of our guys there in the world championships. So if my voice cracks, it's not because I'm going through something. It's just because I got back. But I'm just a very big advocate for all of us within the industry, elevating and becoming better marketers because that's how you outlast disruption. That's the counter punch, so to speak, for disruption is just being more visible and that's what I'm most passionate about. I love that man. The counter punch to outlast disruption is marketing. That's pretty cool. Makes me wonder if you've ever considered tying in. Maybe you have it. I haven't caught it. You know, the martial arts elements into your marketing. I do. Yeah, I do a lot. It's a big part of my brand because it's uniquely mean. I think for anyone listening to this, that's something everybody has access to. Everyone here is a lot more interesting than what they do for a living. So you've got an opportunity to tie in what it is that's deeply personal or what is it that makes you tick outside of work, right? It can't just always be about mortgage structuring and real estate deals. So for me, it's martial arts because it's a huge part of my life. And I do tie that in because the mindset, the approach, the fixation on process, the involvement, which is a big theme, right? Continuing to evolve. You get better and better every day. It's an opportunity and you're only really competing with yourself. All of it ties back in. Yeah. 100%. You're working with a team. All that stuff. And sometimes you get kicked in the face, right? And everyone has a plan until they got punched or kicked in the face. Yeah. In your case, it's probably kicking more off and the parts kicked, yeah, it's kicked in the face. Yeah, for sure. All right. I love that stuff. My son, and I think you and I've rifted about this before when he was, I don't know, 12 or 13 or something. When he got his black belt in Taekwondo. Amazing. Yeah. I remember talking about it. And I wanted him to continue, you know, but hey, so be it. Yeah. All right. Let's shift and let's talk about, you know, all kinds of cool things, building a media brand. You've got, you wanted to kind of frame this around it. Let's start with this around loan officers wanting to attract real estate agents, work with more real estate agents. And you have this saying, which is something about coffee. What was it? You want to refresh my memory? It's, it's fuck coffee. Okay. Yeah. Let's unpack what that means. Well, you know, it's, it's basically guys, I think like what has worked in the past is no longer going to work. And this has been going on for a few years. I think there's still a few of us that are out there in the marketplace across the country that are just waking up to a little bit slower because we've just been kind of taught to no mistake or fault that, you know, you want to get in front of as many agents as you can. The best way to do that is to kind of get them on some neutral turf, you know, it's hard to get them to come to our office because a lot of us work from home now or work out of co-working spaces or whatever. So get them to go to coffee with you, buy them coffee, of course. And I always just say like all this is leading to is a bunch of agents looking at their inbox and recognizing that they don't have to pay for coffee for the next 365 days. They literally have enough imitations and solicitation to go out for a coffee that they know they're not going to pay for. But I also feel that it puts us in this very, for lack of a better way of saying it in this very subservient role or subservient like hierarchy, like you're begging them, now you have to sing for your supper, now you have to hope based on all the things that you're going to say that you're great at that they will somehow decide to throw you a lead or want to work with you. And in the spirit of your podcast, which is where I really learned this years ago, Jeff and I have to thank you for it. Lenders have to stop seeing themselves or acting like solicitors or vendors, right? But we are actually peers. We are the unsung hero of every transaction. So if we want to be viewed differently and we want to be treated differently, we're going to have to be different, which means changing the game up. This is really, really important. So and guys, I also, I don't need to convince you of any of this, if I, if the market will do it for you, okay? So I might be talking about it and may go in one year and out the other and you want to stick with coffee meetings. It's great. I also had to adapt to that because coffee is really overpriced in San Francisco. It's eight bucks. When I started doing this budgeting, man, I was like, I'm like, my marketing budget, so to speak, was getting way out of hand when I looked at it and it's all coffee and sometimes you get a croissant, which is like another seven or eight bucks. It's just nuts. It's crazy after all. So I'm of the mind that you need to turn it and start attracting agents like you talk about Jeff, there's ways to do that and also creating some exclusivity around who you want to work with because the moment you do that, you'll start to be viewed differently because they expect an agent or referral partner generally expects that when a lender is coming out and reaching out to them, they'll do whatever they have to do to try and get business and there's a line of them standing right behind you. And that probably is true. But the moment you can kind of change it and there's some exclusivity or there's some posture involved here that's like maybe they don't all want to work with me. Maybe I have to kind of see if I need to, if I'm okay to work with them or what is it about me that would actually entice them to want to have a business relationship. So it's just a little bit of a different approach and we get to unpack that a bit. Yeah, it makes me be curious about exclusivity, who you want to work with, like not being willing to work with anybody or everybody who fogs a mirror, like how do you get clear on who's let's let's back it up, get clear on who's right for you and then let's talk about the approach you're using which isn't the traditional approach. Okay, so I think for everyone needs to do first and foremost is take stock, right? As a business operator, you're supposed to look at data, you're supposed to look under the hood. You can't just like a robot come to work and make your calls and check your inbox and pound the pavement and go to coffee, right? Like take stock at where business is coming from, who you're actually doing it with. Maybe the data is going to reveal something to you that you don't even think about. Like I seem to be really heavy in this particular part of the market. Maybe it's a geographic zone. Maybe it's a certain segment, like I seem to be doing a lot of investment loans. Here I am talking about first time buyers all day, but 80% of the business I get is investment. Like take stock of all of that stuff and also who's sending it to you. But what I would suggest, and I talk about this from a personal branding standpoint as well, but it applies to us as lenders because we have a brand as well and a brand simply put is your reputation. That's it. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room, it's what shows up to meetings before you do. And it's also the sum of everything that you put out into the universe. That's what it is by simple, simple definition. So that being said, if you're a lender here and you're listening, go to the last or your five best or ten best, just a good sample size, but valid of referral partners, who you work with and ask them to summarize in one word, what is the experience like working with you or what is it they think of when they think of working with you? Like is there something that you're known for and just tell them, look, your referral partners will love this by the way that you're doing it. You just tell them, I'm taking stock in my business. I'm trying to continually improve and keep pace with this market and even get ahead of things. And in order to do that, I want to take, I need to take a, I need to take a temperature or a gauge of how the market views me. So would you mind just summarizing what the experiences like working with me and my team in one word or what is it you think of when you think of me and my team in one word? That right there guys will tell you where you stand. And this is going to either reveal to you and validate that you're on the right path. For most of us, when I did this and I do this continually guys, I do it at least a few times a year when it comes to my referral partners, it actually showed me when I first did it that I was on the wrong path. There was a huge incongruency between what I thought I was putting out into the marketplace and how the market was actually receiving that and viewing it. So I want to tell you, go through that exercise first and this will tell you where you need to improve, where you need to evolve, where you need to get a lot more clear on. And let's, you know, I can stop there for a quick second, Jeff, too, if you want to. Yeah, I'm curious. I want to, I want to, if you can recall what were some of the things that came up for you on the, on the positive or and or the other side of that. Yeah, so I'll tell you guys it was all, it was all negative when I first did it. I was, I was getting a lot of mixed, a lot of mixed stuff like I joke about it that I ran a very white tablecloth restaurant on the front, which was me as the host or the person that would greet people, maybe even take the orders, but the back end, the kitchen was a mess. It was like a fast food chain. So I had a Michael Mino restaurant on the front and I had a fast food chain in the back. Not that there's anything wrong with fast food kitchens, but if you watch them, there's a lot of chaos. It's kind of organized chaos in its own way, but it's chaotic. Just things flying around, it's moving very quick, sometimes it's unorally. And that's what I found out was happening. And I got words back like chaotic. I got words back like untimely. I got words back like disorganized and I was really shocked. Then I felt extremely self conscious because I was wondering how long has this been going on. But when I stopped and took out even deeper look at it, it made perfect sense because I had very few repeat relationships where agents would work with me and then they wouldn't come back. They liked me personally. Again, the front end of the restaurant was fantastic because I was in charge of that solely, but I wasn't doing enough kind of oversight and checking in and wanting to improve and tweaking and taking that tool out from time to time to monitor this stuff in the back. And it made perfect sense. The data was proving that. So I did the exercise and then I found out that all the reaction and all the data and the lack of revenue or the lack of sustainability within these relationships actually matched up with that. So it told me what I needed to fix. And again, I want to urge everyone to do this exact same thing because right now within this market, whatever you want to call this market, which I view it as, I think one of the best ones for us as lenders to forge ahead, I think it's one of the greatest opportunities there is in media right now, better than it was even when I got fully fledged started in this. But right now is the time to be doing all of this stuff and taking stock. Okay. Well, there was a lot in there. I love the analogy of the restaurant, the white tablecloth on the front. It's the chaotic kind of fast food place on the back end. It reminds me of a quote I heard years ago by Joe Stumpf, I don't know if you remember Joe Stumpf, you know, one of the OGs. Anyway, here's this wonderful saying which was about your business. Does the external perception match the internal reality? Beautiful. Yeah. He was very good with language, but I think that's such an awesome exercise to do. If you have the courage to do it to your point earlier, we have a lot of assumptions about what we think it's like to work with us just like for those of us who are in a relationship or a marriage, right? Yeah. We have assumptions about how it's going, right? And then you check in. Yeah, right. Just imagine being a fly on the wall during your spouses or partners, solo therapy session with their therapist. Not the couple is one, but the solo one. All of us, not some, all of us would be absolutely shocked, floored, if not like, probably faint from what we hear because there's just a huge incongruency between what we think and what is actually happening. Do you recall what were some of the more the easier, more immediate changes you could make that, you know, that allowed you to kind of turn it around? Well, it was at a point when I was ready to quit the industry. So with, you know, Neil, my brother jokes about this all the time, he says it famously and I always quote him that you're not truly in the mortgage business unless you contemplate quitting at least once a week, you know, like that's the, that's the mark of a mortgage person. You always have that moment like, why did I choose this career? Why am I in this? Why have I continued to stay? And then the other six days, you feel fine, but I, there was a moment when I was ready to leave and it was about seven years ago because I'd become completely commoditized. You know, I got stood up for an agent meeting and I lost some clients. I got yelled at by an agent and it was like this perfect storm, a confluence of all this negativity and rain. And then I went outside and I called my performance coach, who's, you know, well known in the industry kind of pride and I asked him, I've worked with him since 2009, so I think the universe is trying to tell me something, you know, man, that maybe I should leave or do something else. Mind you at that point, I'd been in the business 16 or 17 years, like you would think that that would garner some kind of respect, you know, or, or, or just, and I'm not asking for the world or anything, but just, you know, like treat me a little bit better than that. But there's the expression guys that you get what you tolerate and that's in life, but it also really applies as lenders who sometimes feel like we're doormats or we get our shins kicked in, you get what you tolerate. And I recognized that I was tolerating being treated like a vendor that I tolerated that I had to sing for my supper, that I had to always prove myself and that I was only good as my rate sheets or the quality of the donuts that I would bring to open houses. And I don't really stomp on, or, you know, I don't really shlup on donuts, I go all out. I get the best pay goes to the best donuts, but I got known for this. So I started thinking like they must be passing my name around these real estate offices, like this is the best sucker in the world. He'll split Zillow leads with you. He brings great donuts, he might even bring some champagne by, you know, for, for doing my most of brunches at your open houses on Sundays, just call him. And I was saying, yes, all these things because I thought it was an embed, I thought it was an opportunity, but what I was slowly doing was putting myself into this like extraordinarily subservient role. So this is where the market viewed me and I needed to make a switch. So when I had that moment and I called Kai, he says, look, I know you're good at what you do and you know you're good at what you do, but does anybody else? And the reality was no, they only knew me for those other things that I just described to you. The media clients did because I would, you know, stay in the peripheral for a while, but time would fade and I wasn't the best at keeping in touch at that time with past clients. So eventually they're forget, right? Because life goes on. So I needed to do something to switch that. So I didn't have the answer right away, but it was shortly thereafter that my brother and I went to a Gary V. event and then everything just switched and I went all in on social because I knew that this is where I could beat my competition. I went under the hood, I looked at, okay, well, I'm getting my ass kicked. The market views me as basically a doormat and I'm losing to all these big banks, okay? So I'm in a very big bank dominated market. Some of you might be as well who listen to this. And in San Francisco, it's the private wealth division that will eat your lunch day and end day out. It's not as bad anymore. It's changing, right? Because, you know, throwing out 2% rates was a good idea for a while until it syncs the bank and so they stopped doing that, right? Simply just based on relationships or asset management. So I knew that these guys are handcuffed by a few things, my competition. Number one, they all wear really terrible clothes that don't fit them, right? You think of a banker who wears an oversized suit, who walks by in a desk at a bank, so they look like shit, okay, I can dress better than all of them, got it. Number two, and that was a joke. Well, actually, you're too much of a dresser. You know what I'm saying? No, I try to be. I feel like, you know, look good, feel good, do good, right? But then the other thing was, is I knew they can't have any presence online. They're not allowed to. They're handcuffed. They are one trick ponies that can offer really low rates. That's it. So the market views them is really cool. And the market also thinks that that's the best part of a relationship, is the rate they have to offer. I said, I'm going to do everything I can to start combating this and teaching that there is more. And in fact, the rate sometimes doesn't even matter, okay? There's strategy involved with this. There's so much more, okay? Guidance and advisement and all the things that all of us who are part of this community know and value ourselves for. So I can start beating them on that. And if I'm more visible, I will get more bats, which will lead to more conversations, which will ultimately lead to more business or enough business for me to have my hands and my plate full. And that was what the game was. It was all about visibility because at the end of the day, I have direct control over how visible I am. I don't have control over who ultimately works with me. We'd like to think we do and we'll do 80 or 90% of the work and take it all the way there and then they'll drop you for something, sometimes it's done for scene. It's just one of the cruel ironies if you want to call it of this business. And we all suffer from it. And I still get it happening to me from time to time, right? It never goes away. Agents know this, lenders know this, right? Something will just happen or they'll drop you for an eighth of a point or their bank or something will happen. And you can't take it personal, but I can control how visible I am. I have 100% control over that, which means I'm either doing a good job or I'm not, right? It may not always show up on the bottom line or in the commission checks, but I do have control over how visible I am. So if I focused there, enough activity was going to come from it. So that's where I made the switch, Jeff. Yeah, that's very wise. What I wrote down was, I know you've heard this phrase before, visibility, Trump's ability. And the caveat that I always write to that is in the beginning, right? Because once you get to the dance, you better be good at what you do. Yeah. Look, best known beats, best 10 out of 10 times. I've been saying this for years and every talk I ever do from stage and it's a joke and I'll share it with your audience. But if I asked, if we asked everyone that listens to your podcast through a silent ballot, secret ballot, name the best vodka in the world. If you're a vodka drinker or even if you know about vodka, what's the best vodka in the world? 90% of the respondents, Jeff, will say, gray goose. The reality is, though, that gray goose is not good vodka. It's actually shit vodka. It's fourth best, according to all the vodka surveys. Belvedere is number one, kettle one is number two. There's another one that's number three. And then gray goose is number four, but why is it perceived as the best? It's because it's so visible. It's a huge brand. In the 90s and early 2000s, it was a huge part of hip hop and pop culture. It was featured in every music video. I joke again, half naked people who are very attractive would bring it out to you at night clubs when you ordered bottle service. The bottles were packaged beautifully. They had great ads. It was just better marketing, it was better optics, it was better visibility that led the world to perceive them as the better vodka. So for everyone who's in here or everyone on your listening, remember the best known beats best every time, and I'll prove it to you again, how many times of you as a lender or you as a real estate professional have been in the business 10, 15 plus years, you have all this experience, you'll lose the listing or you'll lose the deal to someone who's done this for months, you know, and you're like, how is that even happened? This was supposed to be a foregone conclusion that they should have gone with me for my expertise. They were just better known. They must have done something that optically captured the imagination of the consumer and held it. They didn't just capture it. They held it. And that's what caused you to lose the deal. Yeah. That's a great story about the great goose vodka. I looked that up a while ago and actually dug into a little bit about the founder of that. I'm sure you've seen seen the story, but for those listening, if you want an education on the power of branding and visibility, how that trumps a quality ability in this case vodka, right? Quality. It's a really cool story. How this person took that and did all these different things that changed the trajectory of that brand in a huge, huge way. Amazing. All right. Well, let's now dovetail this into we're kind of teasing around this idea of building a personal brand or let's call it a media brand, right? You are what I've seen you do now, right? You've got, you know, LFG, your society, your YouTube channel, if you've got a podcast as well. And there's a few people in the industry, real estate mortars who are bubbling up and we're starting to see more people create like a brand, right, where they're putting content out and they're doing events and different things like that. So first of all, yeah, if why that, why are you going that route and you're talking about visibility ability, you can control your visibility. Is there a dotted line to that? Like, how does this serve you and feed you? Well, again, it comes back to you, the individual. And for me, because of my martial arts background and coaching, what gets me like going is the unique opportunity to every day, every week or every month or any opportunity I get to be able to influence change within a special group of people. That was what fueled me as a coach. And it still does to this day. So I was gone for two days, just as an assistant to go for 72 hours, basically to Spain, because I just want to have that opportunity and I got asked and I'm not going to say no to such opportunity. So for me, that's what it's always been about. So I take that purpose in life, that personal mantra, and I dial that back and I'm like, how does this apply to what I do day to day? How does it apply to a 10 or three? How does it apply to an interest rate? How does it apply to the mortgage bond market? What goes beyond that, obviously, and so for everyone listening, you know, you can run through the same exercise and say, how can I have impact within my space? Well, I have the opportunity through rooms I'm getting into through events that I can throw that I have more of just really guys where it comes down to is just guts to do it. You got to be a little crazy and just guts and building to lose a little bit of money. Sometimes when you do it, but I'm just going to make the big splash and do it. But I have this platform that I can stand on and create some of these things and treat myself and start to operate as a media company that's going to grow and grow and grow and have impact and be able to influence my industry, which I care deeply about as a good steward of it and wanting to remain a good steward and have impact that way, the same way I do in coaching. So that's what really inspired it, Jeff, it was just it simply just came down to impact wanting to have some kind. Well, what I hear there is it really connects to kind of your purpose, right? Like you said, a moment ago, like you connected to this unique group of people you want to be able to serve and show up and have value to, right? Yes. That's it. You're seeing these people through the same filter, realtors, our industry, loan officers. That's what's feeding you here. That's what's driving you. Right. Look, anyone who listens here that's been, you know, on your one of them too, like any pre-O-aiders, right? Every market crash, like this industry has been through a lot. It will continue to go through a lot. And if anything, what it's taught me over the last 24 years is that disruption is not a matter of if it's going to happen. It's when the real estate industry faces it now more, they've definitely taken, you know, I feel like it's even now that we took the brunt of it no way through Dodd-Frank and then lots of other things, commission disputes, QM rules, all kinds of different things, compliance, issues, trade laws. Even, you know, on the real estate association itself had been kind of left out of that for a while and now they came under fire, right? But what is all this basically come back to? It comes back to there being some level of dissatisfaction either by way of an event and occurrence or just general building sentiment. For lenders, it was the massive event, right? It was the collapse. For agents, it was this kind of like slow building resentment at prices or out of control and you make too much money. We all know that the best way to make money in this country is to sue your way to it, right? I think that's changing now. But enough attorneys listen to this, they see that dissatisfaction amongst consumers. Like, you know what? We got something here. You ban people together and that's ultimately what happens. But instead of getting mad at it, you have to look at, well, why did this happen? Clearly, consumers, the market, whatever, things that we aren't good at what we do or that we're not worthy of what we make or the role we play or that we are somehow replaceable. So this is where I get very fired up about it, right? It's the coach of me that comes out and it's kind of the rally cry of saying, no, guys, we're a lot better than this, but we're going to have to prove it. And there's a great challenge in front of us because again, the market is really split right down the middle now. And you're going to see with everything with the advancement of AI and more and more implementation with technology that they're going to say, well, maybe I don't need you. And maybe they're right to someone that understands a real estate or a mortgage transaction inside and out like, Jeff, you don't need someone. You could go through it like and use a platform. I probably could do the same. I would still probably choose to work with somebody, but people have choices now, but it's a massive opportunity to level up. So you're going to have to look at all these things and say, why does it happen and then use it as an opportunity to get better as opposed to just getting mad at it and shouting at the rain. You put out your umbrella and you deal with it. You get back to work, right? Don't get rained on and simply keep pointing and shouting at the rain. It's not going to stop it. And I think for too long, so many people that are in industry, whether it's real estate or lending have done so much rain shouting and getting upset, like, don't be a taxi cab at the end of the day. That's basically what happened to the taxi cab industry and why Uber leveled them. They had a monopoly on this business, on essentially ride sharing and consumer transportation. A monopoly. How do you beat a monopoly? You don't beat a monopoly. The monopoly beats itself. The consumer experience turned to shit. Cab drivers were not nice. They were, they had bathed. They had terrible attitudes. They had one redeeming quality, which was that they didn't require any GPS. They knew streets and corners and markets and neighborhoods like the back of their hand. You gave them cross streets. They were gone. Now, they didn't play this when they finally did get disruptive, but enough people saw it. Capital on the sidelines and said, that's ripe for disruption. So it can happen anybody. But again, it's an indictment on just, you know, on what you're not doing and that's what we, as an industry for ourselves, we don't want to turn into that. We don't want to turn out like the taxi cab industry. Okay. So I'm a loan officer or a realtor and I'm listening to this. I get it. I see it happening around me, build a brand like we, you know, people have been beaten that mantra for a long time, you know, but this I think has shifted now from brand to media brand, you know, media company where you actually are putting out these assets of content as a net, right, or as a top of the funnel discovery, right? So why I'm thinking, I'm thinking through the average loan officer average realtor listening to this and they hear it and they're like, I get it, but I, but what's next? Like how do I even do that, you know, yeah. So what's going to happen here guys is everybody through the exercise we talked about earlier in terms of seeing how the market views you, then taking stock and figuring out and doing the hard look at the minute, what you got to, what you're going to have to tweak or you need to focus or if it's been working out well, what you need to double down on is identify the things that you are very uniquely good at. Sure there might be others that do something similar, I'm not saying you just, you know, if you don't have exclusivity to it, therefore it doesn't matter, it doesn't count. Figure out what you are uniquely good at and so good at. It might be one thing, it might be two things, maybe it's your process, maybe it's, maybe it's communication, maybe it's your ability to market, whatever it is, figure out what that is and then look at the marketplace and take what it is that you're good at and how does it uniquely solve the problems in that marketplace of those you are trying to connect with. It's really that simple and if we're lenders, we know that our real estate partners all need to be better in the areas of AI through, you know, improving systems and creating efficiencies and being better content creators, whether that's through video, email, bus stop signs, billboard, whatever it is, okay, they need to be better content creators, it doesn't always have to be video, that's the easiest way of course, but I know there's some people that's like, I don't know. So these, these are the areas we know that they are deficient in, they are being told every day or every week in their sales meetings, get on video, get do this, do that, no real estate company I know actually helps their agents with this. They just keep telling them this and then the agents kind of have their hands up and they strike their shows, I don't even know where to begin. So they don't, which is why so few of them actually do anything in these areas, they talk about it, they hear about it, but they never take action. So be the uniquely qualified or uniquely positioned catalyst to affect the change in the marketplace that way. So figure out what it is that you're really good at, then ask yourself, how is this strength of mine, this superpower of mine and maybe it's multiple ones, uniquely positioned to solve the problems of the people that I want to work with. And if you do that and you create that match, it's literally that simple. You don't have to do anything crazy, you don't need coaches to tell you this, it's literally that simple. What are you good at? How can it solve the problems in the marketplace, connect those dots and it's probably not very many to connect guys when you really apply yourself and you have more than enough opportunity to do that. The other thing I'll tell you and this is going to be a total you turn on what most people in an industry coach and guide lenders on is I like to personally, this is just directly out of my playbook and I'm very transparent about it. And if you want to take this, please steal it. I have an exclusivity around or an error of exclusivity around the agents and the groups that I work with. First of all, agents are my number three set of referral partners in terms of ranking. Number one are financial advisors, CPAs and attorneys, two is my database, past clients, three are agents and I don't need them to be any higher than them because I work with a very small group of agents. I create exclusivity around it. I've only got 20 to 25 I work with, okay, it's, you know, we just branded and we just called it the LFG group, right, the LFG 20 or the LFG 25 will finalize it depending on where I land on this number. And for those people, I've created a very unique personal banking like experience for those agents and the clients that they refer because I want to be able to serve them at a high level and I'm not trying to be everything to everybody. That's like, that's just a fool's errand to try and think. I need to get 100 agents and I got 100 agents and some of them are giving me business. That's a, you know, going back to before I said, fuck coffee. That's a lot of coffee, you know, for 100 agents. I'd rather work with the 20 or so that view me as an equal because I value my time and I don't want to work with people that don't see me that way or that don't respect me and that I don't respect back, you know, like, you can be selective about this. Nobody says you have to have millions of people. You got 20 or 25 or whatever you want to come up with. Maybe it's 30, but I provide them a very, very fine list of incredible perks. Their clients never pay for an appraisal. Okay, that's a 500 hour expense on mine, but it goes so long. They go to the front of the line for underwriting. They get a promised 17 day close as long as we fully underwritten them, right? They get no fees on future transactions with us, whether they're buying more property or when they come back for refinances. And we promise to keep in touch and monitor their mortgage for them. One, this makes my room for partners look really good because we want to be an extension of their sales or consumer experience. And I tell them this. So they're like, I love it because when I look back as to why they were so fiercely loyal to the banks, the private banking visions here in my market, it wasn't just always rates. Yes, the rates were great perks. So it made the agent look like this hero. You referred me to that guy. He gave me a rate that you can't even print. It doesn't even exist. But they also got red carpet treatment. Like why do you want to continue to spend money with an airline because you, you know, so that you can get back into that club, the Sky Club, right? I'm a Delta fanatic and I was in their Delta one lounge yesterday when I landed in Boston after coming back from Barcelona. It's like, when I'm in there, I'm like, this is why I fly Delta, right? I know that I pay a little more sometimes and I'll take the extra stop instead of a direct flight, but I do it because of these perks. So we can, we can actually create that for the people that we work with, the clients and the partners. But the whole point of this guys is I created something very exclusive. I posted it to my social media and said, I'm launching this program soon. If you're an agent and you have interest in maybe lining to see if we'd be a good fit, reach out to me. The increase were through the roof. Now they're coming to me. Now they're singing for their supper. They want to know if they're good enough to work with me and I have that control. You know what guys? If you're a lender, it's about fucking time that that happened, that that switch happened. So I hope that this empowers you and makes you feel like, you know what? Like fuck that. I'm going to do it. I'm going to turn the tables on them, right? I want them to see, I want them to see if they're good enough to work with me for my program. So come up with a program. Come up with something that's exclusive for your market. Don't try and be everything to everybody. Be something great to a select group of people that you want to work with. Pick and choose who you work with, life's too short, work with good people, work with people that you have alignment with, work with people that have the same sports affinities you do. Just pick and choose instead of getting your shins kicked in and I feel like you'll actually find more harmony in this business. You'll find more joy out of it and it'll attract the right people and you'll just be happier. Hmm. I love that. We're going to unpack that in a second. Hey, are you tired of co-calling realtors and feeling like you're getting nowhere? With my agent classes, you don't have to chase agents anymore. We hand you a done-for-you system of ready-to-teach presentations, plug-and-play marketing and even 200 producing agents to invite so you can double your agent referrals in 90 days or less. Plus, you'll get weekly coaching and a community of loan officers sharing exactly what's working right now. Here's a quick win from one of our members. Been part of my agent classes for a little over a year and totally changed my business. I grew at least 25% and that was during a pretty down market and have only grown every single month that I've kept doing it. Community is great. Jump to the Friday calls. It's awesome. Have fun with it. Teach as many classes as you can. Just do more. Do better. Are you ready to stop chasing and start attracting agent referrals on demand? Book a call at mortgagedmarketing.pro or hit the link in the show notes. Now back to our shop. My first question though is when you put that out on social and you got people responding and inquiring back, was there a percentage of those in there that weren't your A-level relationships? I said there was a bunch of them. In fact, a lot of the people that responded were a lot of these people that kind of would call me to split Zillow costs. Right? They were like the ones like, oh, I'm going to, this guy's giving out free shit again. I want more of it. You know, I was like, no, you're not actually, you know what, man, we're not that group of fit. And I actually had a conversation with one agent who's like, hey, how come I didn't get him put into that group? I was like, I'm going to be honest with you. You know, you'd only call me for these things. Like you'd open every conversation with what's the rate on this or will you split my Zillow leads? Or are you open to coming on Sunday? You barely ever even asked how I'm doing. Ever. Right? You didn't treat me like much of a human being. I'd always even stop you and interrupt you. I'm like, I'll just calm John for now. Like John, how are you, man? Or, you know, I saw that post online that your dad wasn't doing. Well, how's he doing? Oh, he's great. Thanks for asking. And then immediately just gets right into business. I don't want to work with people like that. So I told him this. I know he didn't like it. I got to tell you. It felt pretty fucking good to say it to him finally after all these years and take back some respect and posture into my court. And then I moved on from it. So yeah, you will find some people that'll come back and you'll kind of have your moment of like, being able to, I'm not saying this in a vengeful way either, guys, but I just know because I'm one of you, right? Like I know what those frustrations are and how it feels and how your sense of worth is like this, this like meter that goes up and down hot and cold multiple times in a day. And I just don't like it. And I don't want other people to have to suffer through it either. Well, it reminds me of sometimes when I do webinars for loan officers, I'll talk about the five reasons. They don't get enough agent referrals. And one of those is you have a week value proposition. Yeah, big time, Jeff. You're 100% right. You just laid it out right there because it's the same as lame. Your one-liners are the best. They're the best. I love it. But I've been rehearsing for 20 years, you know? Yeah. Okay. So when did you roll that and program out? That program was actually earlier this year, I rolled it out, you know, and the response was great. We've kind of narrowed it down. We're fine tuning in. There's people, you know, maybe we'll stay on it, but we'll rotate them off. But I created some exclusivity on it and guys, there's a little bit of a line, you know, that's kind of forms invisibly of people who want into it. And just being selective and that's a very empowering thing. But it's also allowing me to do my best work because we can really focus on those people and those relationships and just strengthen them, almost cement them. So you're building like an inner circle, right? Yes. Yep. And I know you also do events and things like that. And maybe so you have like larger events, right? Your LFG energy, events, is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. And then do you also do just like a smaller inner circle thing just for those people? We do. Yeah. So, you know, LFG and how it started, it's kind of like a, it's kind of a funny story and it's really random. That's how a lot of things start. Like there was no real plan, it just evolved and then poof, it turned into something and then you run with it. And I would always, I love the phrase because, you know, Tom Brady says, it's so many people say, let's fucking go. And it was something I would use with the athletes. I would say when I would compete, it's like honoring this like, this like inner energy. And then just saying, let's go, you know, and I'm not going to hold back. I'm not going to let the market dictate whether I'm good or bad. Like I'm going. So I would just start to say, so I had a written down on my desk. I had one of the athletes that I coached to as a graphics designer come up with a logo for it. And it was just sitting there. I didn't even know what I was going to do with it. It was about three years ago. And then I was hosting Ryan Sirhands for an event out here in San Francisco. And the first one I did, I did a couple with them because I wanted to do something big. I wanted to make a splash. I wanted to take a chance and do something. And it was like when the market was just first reopening out here and no one had been doing an event, you know, because a lockdown to San Francisco is a fairly heavily lockdown city at the time, you know, like with restrictions and whatnot. So I got this event together. I've launched the website. I've already started selling tickets that I get a call from his office from one of his guys, they're who I'm still friends with to this day, says, look, man, we kind of overlook something. You're a mortgage guy. I'm like, yeah, duh. Why? How is this news now? You know? And he says, well, Ryan and the brand has kind of an exclusivity agreement with a major bank in terms of marketing and promotion that has to do with anything with financial services and or lending. And so this is going to be very difficult to do. I'm like, are you like difficult as in your canceling? They're like, yeah, we might have to back out of it or cancel unless we can switch the stuff. I've already sold tickets. I've like written a check here. Like I told, I told all the kids at school, there's going to be a circus in my backyard. And if you don't show up, I'm going to look like a jerk, basically, you know, like that's what this was turning into. So I was starting to sweat and then they're like, do you have anything else and ask corporate something? I'm like, yeah, but all my ass courts, you know, and corporations say capital or something to do with money. And they're like, anything. And then I look down at my desk, because I'm on the phone. I'm just glanced. And there's the LFG logo that I'm like, you know what? As a matter of fact, I do, it's called LFG Energy Presents. I literally made it up in the seconds there on the call, Jeff, LFG Energy Presents. It's an event hosting company. And they said, oh, what is that stand for? I said exactly what you think it stands for, stands for let's fucking go. It's like, well, there's no conflict there. That sounds great. We'll just redo the contract and send it over to you. I'm like, awesome. I better turn this into something because it doesn't even exist. And the guy said, you know, that's really cool. Is this been around for a while? Has it done some pretty big things? I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's done a lot of big things. Yeah, you better believe it. Like, you know, why yes it has, and then it turned into something, right? And then it's continued to evolve. So then LFG Energy became a media company. And underneath that, there is the podcast which focuses on just helping anyone to be a better human and evolve their mindset and personally grow so that they can later professionally grow. Because I think the two have to have harmony and be in sync with one another, right? And then we started an exclusive online only community called the LFG Society, which is for high performers and people who want to become a high performer or unlock the secrets of high performance, not necessarily just isolated to our industry. And then there's LFG Energy Presents, which is the event hosting platform. And then we've even started LFG Studios, which is like a little bit of a media company and helping people out with their content and ideas and ideation. So it's continuing to evolve. But the great thing sometimes start by pure accident like that, you know, and I'm really hopeful that this is going to be one of those great things. Yeah, so real quick, I know people like to get a little bit specific and curious, the LFG Society, and I'm looking at your site right now. That's a paid membership, correct? It is. It's a paid membership. I wanted to give people proximity to something similar to what we have or what we hear about nationally with all these great masterminds, which are expensive. But if you're in the right one, they are worth every penny. But what they're creating is physical proximity and the ability to be there, but also be like kind of being that student teacher or dynamic with some really high level thought leaders of people that you would otherwise have access to. And they're great. I'm part of a couple. They're life changing. I wanted to create something online that was a little bit more accessible, hence lower cost, maybe not the same level because you can't recreate that, but you can do it virtually. But giving people proximity and also the collaboration and the space to be able to recognize amongst everyone is kind of in the same trenches, all going through similar personal battles or professional battles, and that we can actually kind of grow amongst each other. Because a lot of these thought leaders and these people that we listen to with masterminds, they're like decades ahead of us, and they're amazing to listen to. And very few of us can actually implement or take to heart every single thing that they taught us or shared with us and put it to work. So we'll get something from it, but it's not like this full string of impact. But Jeff, you and I sit next to each other, you being someone who's been in this industry for a long time and someone who has so much respect for and what you've created, I can learn a lot from you and we can share because we share in some of this struggle. So there's that more of that collaboration, which is why we created this, then I feel like it's going to have a much greater impact. So it started a little over a year ago, almost two years ago now, I think. And that's been incredibly fulfilling and rewarding. It's what I'm seeing people do with it, has been really special, forming businesses of their own, starting things, going off on their own, leaving their brokerage, whatever it is. So it's been really cool. Well, the reason why I want to touch on that for a moment is because there's a few L.O.'s I know around the country that are doing their own version of this. And so you've got some in-person meetings and things like that and you have calls and you're bringing people to the community and you charge for it. And one of the things I want, this is a paradigm shift for a lot of loan officers who think realtors will not pay you for something, right? And you've proven that not to be the case as other L.O.'s that I know and work with, where to your point, you've created your own community of tremendous value. It has value. And so it should have a price attached to it or else they won't value it as much. And you, I just wanted you to confirm that for those loan officers listening who are wondering, well, why would a realtor ever pay me to come to a community? What would you say to them? I'd say you're not valuing yourself the way you should, right? We talked about that earlier. Like if you want to be seen as different or if I can jump in here, maybe, maybe the value you don't have to be the value, you can be the facilitator of value. 100%. That's so well said, Jeff, like sometimes we think we have to have this, you know, million dollar idea. And if it's not going to be that, but you know what there is, I got this from my very first podcast guest on the LFG Energy Podcast, not the first episode, but the first guest. He said there's no such thing as million dollar ideas. There's a million dollar execution and execution can also be synonymous with facilitation. Facilitating is part of executing. So if you are facilitating collaboration, you are facilitating a thought leader with your audience and you're part of it. They got there because of you. You invited them to this party, therefore you're the hero, right? And so you couldn't have said that better, Jeff, and I'm so glad you did it. It can be facilitation. And then through facilitation and through your own personal growth and learnings and development, you'll have things that you'll contribute sometimes by way of accident, which will move the needle in people's lives or businesses. And you'll start to develop confidence in footing in this space. But in the beginning, don't let that hold you back of thinking, I don't have anything to really share. Like what am I? I've got one idea. I'll be done in one week. Like that's one meeting. No, you just be the facilitator. If you have this drive to be able to go out and create contacts in our community now, Jeff, I think you'd agree because you really are a pioneer for this. And I have to, again, thank you for it so many times. You've created so much collaboration and proximity through all, like through the show and through thing and group, but our industry, I think you'd agree is so much more collaborative and closer connected now than it's ever been. It used to be so fragmented and people would be closed off and you could never talk to that guy because he's such a big producer. People will talk. Like I think everyone has developed this great, selfless, abundant mindset now. But if you are just willing to go out and just shake some hands and ask some questions and say hello and put yourself out there, you can facilitate anything you want. You really can. Well, I just love the idea of the community because I think that's one way to differentiate yourself and to build this unique thing that people are attracted to you and they get due in the value association. I want to riff on one more thing if you don't mind. And we'll begin to kind of land this plane. You and I were both at the forward event, great event. And then I think her name is Shadez. Is that how you pronounce her name? If you remember her. Yes. Shadez. Yeah. She had this great quote I wrote down which is, you are the messenger of value. You do not need experience to bring value to it. And I was like, that's exactly what you're doing. You're the messenger of value. You are assembling value and you're packaging it in a way that makes it a palatable, interesting and exciting for your audience, your local realtors, other professionals, affiliates and all these other. So now what you've built is this out through this LFG community and I'll one little other hot take from the forward because I've just been doing my recap was your idea who told me to do a recap the forward. Yeah. So I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did. So you've helped me with that but the other thing you may remember Cody Sanchez said distribution is king. Yes. And so what you're doing is you're building this community of value and you're the distributor slash facilitator of value, of ideas, of people, of resources. And that is the new way to level up your brand in today's world and attract everything you want to you. 100% and don't ever forget, guys, one of the greatest needs as a human being is to be seen or to be acknowledged and community gives people that opportunity. If you bring people into your community, don't just bring them in and collect whatever you collect, whether it's a cost or something or a trade off or business, whatever it is and just leave it at that because then you're just being no different than the transactional types, but actually see them, acknowledge them, get to know people and connect with them on a human level because if you see that and you shed light on that, you'll start to really affect change. And that's been the most rewarding thing in this journey of building community, creating community and expanding community, speaking on stages or whatever is having that connection with people. So see people, acknowledge them because that's a huge need. And if they feel seen in your group, think about the greatest groups that you love being part of or the masterminds, whatever. What is it about it? You love it. I guarantee you the roots or the common denominator will be across multiple ones is something in the area of being seen or acknowledged. I feel like I'm matter here. I feel like I belong here. I feel like people look at me here, you know, I'm heard, right? These are human needs so we can take that and apply it to whatever community or sense your building. I think you have greater impact. Yeah. So look, if that was just one idea you took away from today, which was start to think about how you can build your own community, it doesn't have to be perfect. It will grow and evolve over time, but just figure out a way to get people in the room, to get people together and you will grow. You will attract the right, you will attract, like it says, your vibe will attract your tribe. So let's do this. So here we are about to enter August of 2025. I don't know if you saw this, but the job support that just came out of the two that have come out. One was not positive. And then I guess there's another one coming tomorrow, if I'm correct. And so we might see some negative news on the job front, which might lead to the pressure around rate cuts. Let's get a little tactical for a second. Obviously, a lot of people are hoping for rate cuts, right? But I mean, the market is whatever the market is, right? And there's business to be had out there. But with that said, you're a coach. You're great at advising and training people. Maybe this is for your own plan for the rest of this year, but what would you advise people to do the rest of this year to build momentum for, you know, end of 25 into 26? Well, two things. And the first thing is to take a deep breath in spite of all this rollercoaster that we've been on and this wild ride, which is not ending anytime soon, guys. So just get used to it, right? And that's what the business is. It's supposed to be this way. Acknowledge that the need for shelter and housing is never going away. So no matter how bad things ever get, it's never going to stop. People will always need a roof over their head, whether it's government subsidized or in the form of rent or they actually pay a mortgage. It's never going away. So taking a step back and recognizing that my competition is decreasing with the amount of people that leave this industry month over month. And the fact that the market isn't changing its needs, it's just going through certain ebbs and flows. So when I recognize that, okay, great, there's a need for me. Like I will have value in this market no matter what or how I just need to choose to see it that way. The second thing is is to, you must do this with like, I call it with violence. I think Hormosi says that, right, when you build a brand, he was asked, like, how did you build it? He's like, through violence. He doesn't mean physical violence. He meant like every piece of content that was out there was a slap that you were throwing on the market. He was slapping the market. Like, you need to, you need to through violence, literally, you know, digitally speaking. Establish yourself as an authority or as a media source of optimism, of reason and clarity. All of us do a massive disservice to this marketplace when we sit in the middle and you have consumers on one end of the spectrum and the legacy media on the opposite side, reigning on them stories of negativity and confusion or that the Fed controls mortgage rates. No, they don't. Is there influence? They're sure. But how do you expect people to understand this if we don't speak up? And if you look now where people are getting their news source, whether it's good or bad, they're not trusting legacy media. They will listen to whoever steps into the microphone and builds the audience. And this is what gives rise to conspiracy theory. So that's maybe good or bad. It also gives rise to just general truth speakers. That could be good or bad too, because maybe the version of the truth is not the right one. The point is is that you have an opportunity to do it, but you have to literally stand up and intercept those messages that are coming from the media and present it back to the audience. Here's what this means to you. Here's what you should do. Here's my thoughts on this. If you do this consistently, you will start to find that people in your community or in your audience, they view you as the news authority. They're actually coming back to you and saying, Jeff, I actually, I wanted, I was waiting for your take on that thing with that job before, because I actually trust you more than I trust CNBC or Diana Olick or any of these other guys who are like, I know maybe there's an agenda. People just don't trust traditional forms of media. We don't have to get into whether that's good or bad, but it's the truth. It's just the way it is now, which gives all of us unique opportunities. If we do so genuinely and with a high degree of sincerity and integrity to build an audience and connect with people and be these presenters of truth, of light, of optimism. And that's what people are going to be attracted to. So that would be my plan for anyone. That's what I'm doing. I'm doubling down, tripling down on it more. For the back end of this year, I'm imploring every mortgage professional out there, right? If you want to be seen as someone different in this market, then let's start being different, like I said, act different. Be a news authority and broker this news to people and cut through all the nonsense and tell people why it's okay, why the sky's not falling or here's what this means for you or here's why you should give it down. And if you keep doing this consistently, I promise you. You do this as a promise. You can take me up on this and send me a DM and I'll buy you dinner if you win the bet because you won't. I'm going to win this bet. You do it for six months straight. For the rest of this year, the back end of the year or however many months we have left, I guarantee you when 2026 starts, you are going to be in a totally different place in this market than you were right now at this point. And that's a promise. Yeah, that's a great point. Way to end on that, man. Okay, so this has been a great conversation. I'm sure people listening want to connect with you more. So let's give them all the places. First of all, the links will be in the show notes. So make that easy if you're listening wherever right now, look in the show notes. But where would you like people to go to follow you as Instagram, your preferred place? Instagram definitely. That's where I connect with people. I answer all my own DMs. Sometimes it's a little slow, but I'd love to connect with people and I'm happy to help anyone anytime. So okay. So at yeah, that handle that's at our June mortgage. We'll put that link in the show notes. We'll also link up everything else you got your podcast, the society, LFG.com. So people can begin to follow you, got a YouTube channel as well. And I would say, look, I mean, if you heard a couple of things here that inspired you, these ideas of community and being a media brand and you're early on that journey, here's what I do. I follow people like Arjun and I just learn from him and I watch him and I go, oh, wow, that's cool. He's doing that. Hmm. I think I'm going to borrow that idea. Take it. Please. Deal it. Do it better than me. So why not? Anyway, man. Listen, I always appreciate you. Thank you so much for what you do in our industry, you know, raising the bar in so many ways you do and also just, you know, leading with abundance. Thanks, Jeff. I appreciate you, brother. Your podcast is a big part of my week. It's helped me out with more content creation than you know, and I'll give you credit for it. And so I, you know, I applaud you for everything you do for us, man. So right back at you. My pleasure. All right. Listen, listen. When you connect on Instagram, you go follow Arjun right now via the Instagram link in the show notes. Share with him. DM him. You're one big takeaway from this conversation. I guarantee he's going to respond to you, just be patient because he's busy, but he will respond to you. So everybody, thanks for tuning in. You know what to do. Like this episode. Share it. DM Arjun. And we'll see you on the next one. And that's fucking go. There you go. 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 mortgagemarketing.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.