How This LO Got 17 Contracts In One Month from Social Media

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Fire episode of mortgage market radio coming at you. Thanks for tuning in. A quick reminder as well. If you're enjoying these episodes and you haven't yet left us a review, appreciate you doing that. Just quick tap swipe in the mobile app that you're listening to this on your podcast. And they've a review and or share it with somebody else that you think might find this content useful. So before we get into this week's special guest, another success story from the streets of our mortgage marketing program members. Let's just face it. The market is shift. Refires are long gone. A benefit. I saw a stat the other day that said something like 85% of mortgages are well under 6% from Redfin. So obviously what's left? What's next? Virtuous business. How you getting purchase business? Look, there's a bunch of different ways to get it. One way that is of course reliable and the shortest path, most efficient and least costly path is you building profitable referral relationships with successful realtors in your local market. Yes, I know it. There are challenges. Look, don't show me a way to generate leads in business that doesn't have its challenges, whether it's cost, whether it's overhead, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's time from lead generated to for that lead to close. Look, there's all different versions of hard. You just got to choose your hard, right? So getting agent referrals, although I would argue with you is the fastest route to buyers in the market that are active and ready to convert. How do I know that? Well, because I've been doing this since 2003 and I've seen and heard it all and as much as I love social media, video marketing and all that goes with that that is definitely should be a pillar of your business. What also should be a pillar of your business is the past client database and of course referral strategies. And I'm talking about real estate agent referrals today. New success story coming in from one of our pro members, Jeremy Martin, what's up? Jeremy just finished up another reals class, great turnout and he had an agent he's been inviting since he started teaching classes, finally showed up, came to the class because another agent told that agent how much she has learned by attending Jeremy's classes. It made his day Jeremy, it's making my day to what's happened since the class is that he's already got two meetings set to follow up with those agents after this class. Guys, that's fast. That's what I call referrals on demand. I haven't yet found a more successful route for attracting and converting agents to referral partners than building your personal brand and leading with education, providing resources, content information that makes a measurable difference or gives a competitive advantage to real estate agents. I meet with agents all the time in my local market. I talked to the land work with loan officers all the time across the country who when they lead with helping agents, teams, brokerages, solve the problems and challenges of the types of things we provide for our pro members like Jeremy, how do I do reals? How do I get started on a video? How do I set up a YouTube channel? How do I optimize my Google business profile and on and on and on? If you become the conduit, the source, the hub for that information and follow our proven system in process, you will be generating referrals on demand. You will build a personal brand that will allow you to become the dominant go-to lender in your local market. Don't believe me? You can go to mortgagemarketing.pro and go read the additional success stories that you have over there and learn more. So without further ado, let me now introduce our special guest. So I was introduced to our special guest. I was actually speaking at the California Association of Mortgage Professionals the other day. By the way, if anybody is looking for a compelling, funny, engaging and high-value speaker for any of your upcoming events, hey, yours truly, reach out to me, DM me on Facebook, Instagram, you know how to reach me. So I'm at the camp event up in what was a daily city Bay Area of San Francisco and had a rep from a mortgage company come up to me there and say, hey, have you heard about Josh Thompson? And I said, no, I haven't. Who's Josh Thompson? Oh, he's a lender here that has 121,000 followers on Instagram and he's only been active on Instagram for about a year. That's it. I said, what get out of here? You got to be kidding me. No. So I went and looked Josh Thompson up and I found out everything she said and more was true. And I said, I got to get Josh on the podcast because he's doing some incredible things when it comes to content. And he's also generating actual business, business in the month of February. By the way, this is February 24th, where I'm recording this, 17 contracts generated exclusively from his presence online social media in the month of February, 350 applications in the month of February, 700 leads in the month of February. Guys, all of this is from the content that he's putting out completely free on Instagram and TikTok. Those are his two primary platforms and you're going to hear exactly how Josh got started, how he got over some of the limitations and roadblocks and mindset that you probably have. And I have and you know, still struggle with struggle with putting content out there. Well, Josh was able to get through those, get beyond those. And he's been posting consistently now for roughly a year and now you've heard his results. So first thing you want to do is listen to this episode and perhaps simultaneously go look up Josh online at Instagram, mortgage data, three on on TicTac, mortgage TicTac, mortgage data, three on TicTac and start to follow up, start to see what he's doing. And then simply swipe into point, the idea you like and making their own, all right. And so that's it. Listen to this episode, enjoy it. Go to Josh's Instagram, DM him, let him know you heard about him on the podcast here and hope you enjoyed this episode. So let's get into this weeks show Josh, welcome to the show. Thank you Jeff for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for hopping on with short notice as well. I know we both have crazy schedules and calendars. And so I always appreciate people who are busy doing a lot like you are making time. So for the listeners who aren't familiar with Josh Dobson, who is he? What does he do? All right. So well, I'm a mortgage loan originator, a person foremost. Second, I've tried to grow my business through social media. So many people would refer to me as a micro influencer. I do a lot of social media. What I like to call entertainment, more so than anything else, we're trying to educate but also entertain at the same time because education can be kind of boring. And a lot of our listeners and the people that follow us like to be entertained while also learning about the process, buying a house, getting a home loan, because it's not really a fluffy subject, not really something that's real pretty. So we try to try to make it a little bit nicer to listen to. All right. You've been originating or in the business for 22 years? Oh, yeah. So I've been doing loans for about 20 years. So I graduated in college in 2004. So the year off, I was going to go back to law school, took my own sets, got applied, was going to law school, jumped into this business with my mother and my stepfather at the time who were originating. So this was 2004. I gravitated towards it. I loved it. I enjoyed the process, the numbers part of it, helping people, talking to people. So it became kind of more of a love for me. And I decided to make it my career instead of going back to law school. So 20 years, bounce back and forth between pro grids and retail lenders, you know, kind of the same story. Most lenders have been doing it this long, you know what I mean? Yep. Yep. Okay. Awesome. Well, people call it a Bay Area, but it's Modesto, California. We're back in the central valley of California. Yeah. See, I wouldn't call that the Bay Area. Exactly. Right? But some people might say, you know, the East Bank, you know, I try to get away from that. I'm in the heartland of California. Oh, no, no, no, no. Modesto is not. I mean, this is coming from a guy who's lived up and down entire California coast. So I know what you're talking about. Yep. Plus my son goes to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. So, no, the area of, you know, driving through the back roads very often. Not a lot to see, a lot of farmland. So you were brought to my attention, as I mentioned you a moment ago, by your mortgage insurance rep. And she's mentioned to me that, hey, have you heard of Josh Thompson? What's he's doing on Instagram? I'm like, no, and then she brings me you to your channel and you have 121,000 followers at the time of this recording on Instagram. And yet you've only been on Instagram a year, is that right? So I mean, we've been on Instagram a little bit longer, but we really haven't done anything as far as social media, marketing, recording videos for probably maybe a year. I would say I'm closer to above eight months. So yeah. So what got you on, like, is there a story behind that? Yeah, I guess there kind of is. So I mean, being in the business for 20 years, I've seen a lot of ups and downs. I've seen changes in the markets and how things work, where business comes from. And so I would say probably towards the end of last year, I realized that the market was getting ready to ship. We were going to see kind of a slowdown in the markets, especially here in California, prices rising, interest rates rising. I figured some things were going to start to change. So I wanted to expand my reach, knowing that the old model of chasing after real estate agents locally works well and good when the markets are hot, but when it starts to slow down, it becomes kind of anemic, becomes very difficult to survive as a one officer and a single breadwinner for your household. So I looked at the opportunity on social media that I saw, which was, I feel like it was a great way for you to reach more consumers and connect with them on a more personal level. So instead of the old model where you're chasing after real estate agents looking for referrals, I figured I could put the script and get directly to the consumer and get them before they're off shopping for houses and then put them in the place where they need to be, which is shopping for houses after they've been pre-approved. And the first place you went was Instagram? So yeah, I mean, we looked at all of the different social media channels. Instagram at the time was flipping two reels, so video content before they had just been a picture app and that really didn't lend itself to what we were trying to do, right? So with the advent of video and video becoming more prevalent in social media, we saw an opportunity to start creating videos that drove traffic, that drove engagement and those videos, obviously, with the personal touch of me being in the video, communicating and getting across different messages, it just seemed like the right fit to be able to grow an audience, but also grow a following to help us drive consumers to become homeowners. So prior to deciding to get on Instagram, timing of reels and all that stuff, video, had you prior to that done much with video? So if you go back and you look at our Instagram page, if you go back just before this all happened, a lot of it was just the carousels and the pictures, really hadn't done a lot of video. Like I said, it was just kind of one of those things where we saw an opportunity, and again, another aspect of it was TikTok, right? So TikTok also became very popular, and TikTok was another platform where it was a lot of short-followed video content, and it's a lot easier for someone who's starting out to really get involved in short-followed video content because it requires less information, it also requires less work, right? So before everybody was on YouTube, and YouTube requires a lot longer videos, so it requires a little bit more content with the advent of the short-followed video content. It gave us a platform to be able to create a lot of content and get a lot more information out there in a short amount of time with a little bit less work. Yeah, but Josh, many people have seen what's happened with Instagram, Reels, the short-form video thing, and yet they've still sat on their hands and done nothing. What's different about you that you decided to take hold of that, because you heard from sure heard all the quote excuses or reasons why I don't want to get on video or whatever the thing is, right? How did you deal with that mentally or whatever? In all fairness, I've done a lot of research, and a lot of the research says people don't get started because of the psychology of it, whether it's the, I don't look good or I don't sound good. For me, I think as I've grown personally in myself and with all of this within myself, I became aware that it didn't matter, I don't necessarily care what other people think I look like or what I sound like. For me, it became about the consumer. So I realized, after having thousands of conversations with clients throughout the years, I realized there's a lot of this information out there, so a lot of lack of education when it comes to finance, when it comes to buying a house, when it comes to getting financed by a house, right? So I saw a niche, I guess you could say, being able to provide a level of education that was entertaining, that would help consumers actually get the right information. You seem to be a somewhat entertaining guy, meaning you've got a lively personality. Well, you know what's funny is I don't think I really do. I guess it's just when the camera turns on, I have fun and I realize that if not really anything, you can say that's really wrong. Well, that's great, man. You just saw this opportunity, this short form content comes out and you're like, hmm, I think this is going to be something to your point earlier about a better way to connect and engage with people, video, and that was roughly a year ago or so. And I am going back in your feed here, by the way, trying to get back to those old images. I do have to go back quite a ways because you've posted a hell of a lot of content. Well, yeah, I mean, that's one of the other things about it is that as we were doing this, we engaged with a lot of other content creators and got a lot of information on what and how to do it. So when we're talking to other influencers and we're talking to other people in the mortgage industry that want to get into the the space of social media, we try to explain it consistency and repetition. It is a great way to get comfortable on the camera, get comfortable with video, and really engage your customer. You have at this time of us recording this 1,000, 1,100 posts. How often you posted to Instagram? So currently, our schedule is two times a day. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. So look, I just actually prior to this got off a webinar I was doing with a real estate agent, Levi Lasek out of Texas who's built a one hell of a YouTube presence. And we had a bunch of LOs and realtors on there. And as I'm sure you are well aware, often people go to immediately the noise or the story. They tell themselves in their head about, well, shit, how you doing to a day? Like, oh my god, I don't have time or like, you know, how do you edit? What about the filter? What about like all these what ifs? Right. It's a lot of overthinking. Yeah. I mean, and honestly, I think that's a lot of what gets what gets involved people's way is overthinking about it. Because I mean, if you look at it, our video editing and content's gotten a little bit better over time, the quality. And that's just again, repetition. But starting off the process is the best way to do it. I mean, we started with, I mean, heck, I mean, I think I've been through like four or five different mics. We add lighting. We do different lighting. So I think it's just a matter of trial and error and what you're comfortable with. But you have to start somewhere. I mean, you really can't just sit on the sideline and make excuses. I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm I'm at fault for this quite often. I've been working on and trying to get started on my own podcast. They haven't started recording much of it. I'm going to have done a lot of individual videos for long form content for YouTube. But at the end of the day, it's just a matter of getting started and trial and error, like you said. Okay. So twice a day, and I'm looking at your content, and I'm just thinking in my head, like the audience of the questions they would probably be asking you if you're here, you know, do you have a team who does your editing? Give me kind of a structure of like, you know, your content strategy. How you go from idea to what I see here? Okay. So yeah, I mean, a lot of it is spending some time. So we spend about an hour every day on Instagram, not to interrupt, but when you say we who's right. So it's me and one other person. My social media manager is also my mother. Okay. Cool. Family family orientation. So she actually does most of the video editing. We collaborate with as far as the content is concerned, the messaging, and then kind of the content calendar. So I mean, we try to plan out as much of this as possible so that we were not stuck because a lot of people will get stuck. They'll, they'll, you know, you've got the trending videos, you have the talking videos. There's lots of different ways that you can create content. So we try to do a lot of it or all of it. And so collaboratively we will spend about an hour on social media, whether it's Instagram or TikTok, we'll look at other influencers content. We'll see kind of the messaging, how it's playing out. It's a lot of market research just because you can always recreate the wheel, but recreating the wheel sometimes ends up with a lot of frustration just because you miss the mark. So the other great thing about this is with the number of repetitions that you do, you really start to learn what your voice is and how your voice can impact consumers and the people that are listening. So I mean, we have probably about 20 to 30 different messages that we like to repeat, whether it's specifically to a specific type of person, but we've found that these actually play well and they reach a lot of consumers. And so that's really important for us because we'll try to get our message out there and platforms push different videos based on the amount of information that you get. So if you're producing content that's great and educational, but nobody's watching it, it has no impact. So we've learned to look for different aspects of how messages come across and how they play with the consumer and on the social media platforms. So we have different messages for different platforms. We have different content for different platforms. We really, again, it's market research and then trial and error. Repetition. A lot of your content, at least at brief glance, appears to be education related. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're literally doing as much of it as we can as far as entertainment. Like I said, one of the words that I like to coin and phrase and use a lot of entertainment, right? So it's education, but it's also entertaining. Um, and well, your mom's are crediting. First of all, she's doing a really good job. Yeah, I tell her all the time. She's done an amazing job. And for a boomer, people get shocked all the time. I didn't want to say it. I already didn't want to say it, but I was just like, my mom's not a boomer. But like if she was ever to edit a video, there'd be like, oh my god, the world's ending. Well, it's been, it's been, it's been something new for her. Because I mean, like I said, when we decided to go down this path, um, there was a conversation I had with her. I said, look, I feel like this is where the market's headed. Yeah. Like it's a great way for us to get in front of more consumers and on their knee, your home. So we sat down, we went on the podcast. She's been learning different ending techniques to use for a different path. Yeah, she's doing a role. Yep. That's really awesome. I'm just really impressed. You know, most of the time I tell people the outsourced are editing, you know. Yeah, I mean, there's some great, there's some great websites, right? I mean, there's fiber, there's upwork. There's a lot of different ways to get videos edited. Um, I guess I was just fortunate that I had my mother who is willing to learn new stuff. Um, and, uh, sometimes I think she loves it. Sometimes I think she's, she's overwhelmed at times. But for the most part, we have fun doing it. And I think, I mean, I, I, I looked at some research yet again. I guess a lot of, um, influencers have a happier life. Um, just because we spend a lot of time creating fun, happy content, um, and we can communicate. So we're, we're, we're getting to dump a lot of what we hear, feel and experience every day and get it off our chest on social media. So it's, it's a great platform and it's a great way to really help mentally as well. You know, before we get to, I'm going to make a note for myself, just business, right, deals that have come by your way through through social, um, I just had this thought as I heard you describing that. You know, this too is, I wonder if part of the challenge of people making bridging the gap between seeing the video and seeing people like you and others and everybody seeing as I know, I know, I know I know I should do, but I, some people doing some people don't bridge this gap. And let's remember that in the mortgage industry, we have a lot of, um, analytical people, right? These high seas and things like that on the disc profile. Yeah. And I'm going to, I would get, I don't know how many are creative versus, but you're clearly creative. I can tell by how you show up on camera, you're comfortable on camera, you have a personality is engaging and humorous, all those things. I mean, not everybody has that is a personality, you know what I mean? No, yeah. So I'm more like, what do you, how would you coach them to say you can still do this? So we all have our own voice, right? And we all have a voice, we all have a way we come across it. If you look and you follow some of the other influencers that are from the mortgage base, not everybody is fun and engaging or, you know, they all have different personalities and they all do well. You know, I, we've got something coming up here this afternoon where I'm going to jump on another call with a couple of other influencers and one of them is very pragmatic, very, and you might say dry, but she had the great following. And it's because she, the way she comes across with her message, it plays to other consumers. Not everybody likes my content, not everybody likes everybody else's content. There's people out there for you, it's just a matter of reaching them. That's an excellent reminder, by the way, everybody, if you didn't catch that, it was the same thing that on the earlier call I was on today, leave I about the YouTube channel when people see other people in their town producing content, right? And they're like, oh, so and so's already done it. And the point you just reiterated, which is there, there are people out there just for you. Like some people will like John, some people won't or Josh, but some people won't, you know? So that's, there's enough to go around as the point. And just there really is. And I mean, honestly, the market or at least the group of people that I've met through social media, the one officers, we're all here in it to help each other. None of us are really cut through. We all have each other's backs. And a lot of times, we will collaborate and we'll talk about things because we all have different clients, we all have different customers that we can play to. And there's just so much out there that it's, I mean, hey, I'm fortunate enough there's not a lot of people in the Central Valley that are doing this. But even if there was, like I said, this is a national thing. We have a very broad reach. And so there's plenty of people out there to connect with. All right, let's talk about the thing everybody wants to know, are you getting business off of Instagram or social media? Yes, I am getting a ton. So when we started this, this was simply just for me to drive traffic, to try to get leads, to try to get contracts, to try to get closed loans, right? It's gotten to the point now where our company is developing what we call our influencer division. So there's me and another influencer who are joined teams. And we are driving traffic and leads. So well, one second, let me look back. This month, I had an email come out this morning. According to statistics, we have some team applications or 17 contracts from social media in the month of February. We have 350 applications per February. And we had close to 700 leads. And is that one of those those sources? How many of that's insta versus other places? So that would probably be about, for me, it's about 75% TikTok, 25% Instagram. Really? We are shocking people's perception of TikTok right now. Well, and I mean, that's the other thing is that the other influencer, I would say a majority of his leads and his applications are coming from Instagram. So again, different clients, different customers, different platforms have different messages with different results. You know what's so interesting about this? And this is part of the challenge for I think some people sometimes they have to decide, you know, what platform to quote go all they're on. And I'll definitely take your input on this after I do this little riff here. Because I'm going to assume you probably dedicated focus time early on to perhaps Instagram or TikTok first. But for example, again, just because it's fresh into my mind, you know, on a call earlier about YouTube. And, you know, Levi making the positioning YouTube as being, you know, what he said basically was, you know, I don't sit down with my wife and go, Hey, honey, let's, let's sit down and get on TikTok or get on Instagram and see what's for sale if we're thinking about buying homes. Now, maybe the mortgage journey is a little bit different. But his point was, as you well know, that YouTube is search engine, it's research. People are getting in there in the early stages of research. And that's why he tends to favor YouTube. But at the same time, clearly, you're getting business from a non-search platform that isn't really research oriented. It's more entertainment oriented. So what do you say to that? So I mean, that's, that's a great question. And in all fairness, I would disagree. I mean, TikTok and Instagram would be considered a search engine. If you look at TikTok, if people search for information, they search for how do they search? They just go to the search like right now, just type in search and you know, just like you can on YouTube, right? If you go to YouTube, right, you still have to go to the search bar to search for whatever it is you're looking for. So when you go to TikTok, if there's something that you're there to learn about, you can search for it in their search bar, just like you can on YouTube. So it is its own search engine. And the other part about it is that with the changes in SEO and Google and all of that, you can be on the internet, you can be searching in Google and end up on TikTok. So it's not necessarily, yes, I agree. YouTube's a great search engine and it's one place that I'm putting more emphasis and work into because of the long form content. But again, short form content is a little bit easier to get into and it has the same search engine optimization as YouTube and same characteristics with the ability to search through it. So I mean, at the end of the day, it just comes down to, you know, what you're doing. Don't get me wrong, I would not put all of my cards in one basket. If you look at a lot of us in the influencer arena, we're on all social media platforms and the reason is is that it will increase your brand awareness, but it also is important because again, different platforms have different followers who have different people looking for different things. Different audiences. Yeah. And so that so it goes back to this saying long time ago that I put in my book, for those of you who haven't got my book, you know what to do. And the saying was, everything works just not everywhere all the time for everybody in the same way. So for, and by the way, the filter through which that was said through Levi and tons of respect. So that's just Levi and who he is. And that's how he's going to approach, you know, something like buying a home or researching a product or something. He's not necessarily going to go to Instagram to research, you know, the hot coffee maker. What's the best coffee maker out there, right? Yet the numbers, your results are proving that you, and you're not the only person I've talked to, obviously, you can get business. It doesn't have to be. And I think this, I'm just, you know, long winded here going back to circling the question I asked people when they're trying to decide, where do they focus their attention is, where do you already hang out? Which social platform? Right. You know, where do you get your information from? Yeah, start there. Yeah, where do you enjoy going on and saying, Hey, I'm going to flip through this and find out some more information on this, right? That's a great place to start because you're comfortable. You've seen a lot of the messaging, right? Again, we talk about this because on social media platforms, where it's YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, different platforms have different messages that work. So if you're on a specific platform because you enjoy it, it's most likely the messaging there. It's your, your brain. That's the way you think. And most likely, both fit the same clientele that you're looking for that you would meld well with. Interesting. Here's the question I've been wanting to ask somebody, and this is completely off from left field. So, you know, with TikTok, right? One of the reasons you said, Oh, you know, if you look at us influencers, we're kind of spreading our content around. A, different audiences, but B, in TikTok's particular case, like you never know what social platform might not be here, right? Oh, yeah. Like all the stuff in China and all they like, who was one day? That could be shut down, maybe. Yeah. I mean, so that was, I mean, obviously, we didn't really know that that was going to happen. And we do a lot of TikTok content. So I would say we probably do three to four times a day on TikTok. But in all fairness, it's one of those things where we've kind of tried to do it all places as much as possible. But again, we have to tweak the messages depending on the platform. Okay. So you set it now three times a day on TikTok or whatever, twice a day on Instagram. And again, it's the listeners are like, dude, how do you do that? Well, most people are asking that question from the context of being an originator. Are you no longer in the, you know, the typical day to day activities of an originator? I spend almost all my day originating lows, whether I'm reviewing applications, credit reports, inputting contracts. Obviously, I have a team. So my processor, my loan partner, they help me when things get into contract and we're on a tight timeline. But as far as the leads and everything are concerned, I'm handling all of them at this point. We are trying to find additional loan officers who maybe would like to work leads and figure out how to get applications closed to help because obviously, you know, I spend probably seven hours of every day working on the leads, the applications, the credit and the customers. But I take at least an hour every day to create content. And a lot of times what we do is we do batch. So we'll take and we'll time block three hours on Thursday. And we will go in. And as we've done our market research, we will save videos that we like. We'll save. Because again, we do trending. So trending audios will save the audios that we like. And what we'll do is we'll go record all of these videos, whether the trending ones or their talking ones. A lot of the trending ones are really easy to do because we can batch and bunch of them. And then we add the message later. But the talking ones, obviously, that's more of us going, hey, we really need to get this message out. So that comes from me working files. So as I'm working files and we run into issues, things where people didn't realize that this was the case. Or there was a lack of education and a lack of information. I'm writing this stuff down as I'm working on it. So that way, then I can create videos around it to offer up entertainment and education about the process or something that we, as we're going through it, somebody didn't know. So the market research comes from doing the loans too. All right. Yeah. Exactly. The content you get from talking to people. Yeah. I've said it at Nazi. I might feel like in the last day of just doing people like, what do I talk about? Well, how about the top five or 10 questions you get, right? I mean, that's five or 10 videos right there. Yeah. I mean, it's endless. There's a boundless amount of information that people just don't know. And I mean, don't get me wrong. It's not everybody. So you'll have the same message a bunch of times or you may have it only once. But it's all information that is being missed or not being taught that you could create content around them to help somebody figure that out and know that. Yeah. For sure. All right. So in terms of lead generation stuff, 17 contracts. What was the apps? 350 apps? Is that what I wrote down? 350 applications. That's crazy. I was like double checking that number was correct. Yeah. That's for February. Yes. So I mean, we've done close to three to 4,000 applications since we really started this whole social media thing. Okay. That's what I wanted to better understand is you're kind of like lead, you know, social media inquiry thing process. There's a kind of a link in bio. You use snip feed. Other people use like link tree. Is that how you move people forward in the process? Yeah. So a lot of like I said, a lot of our content is centered around different things. So one of the programs that we offer we call our blueprint blueprint to home program. It used to be our road to home program. So it's changed. The messaging changed a little bit. That's thanks to my boss. But that is for those who aren't necessarily ready to buy it right now that either need credit help. So they know that their credit's not where it needs to be and they need some advice on how to get there because that's a lot of a lot of people in this in this country just don't know how to fix their credit or get their credit where they need to. But it also gives them a chance to work with us to figure out where they need to be in order to buy a house. And we give them the timeline. We set them up on an app. The app allows them to send goals. Create a savings account that they can autograph into to start saving for a down payment. Track things like their red payments which we can use to help them qualify for a home loan. There's a bunch of different aspects in the app that we help them with the blueprint to home that gives them that helps them strengthen their final within the timely and the day to be able to purchase house. So a lot of people who are, you know, I'm in my lease for another 64 months. I'm already a buyer right now. That's great. Here's how we can do it. So we'll take your application. We'll do a soft credit poll. This gives us enough information to tell you kind of what you qualify for. But it also gives us information that we can tell you, hey, if you did this, this, and this with your credit, this is where your credit score would be. Here's the programs you would be eligible for. Here's what you qualify for based on your income. If you were to pay down this debt, you could qualify for this. Or if you were to save up this much money, here's how much you could buy, and here's how much you could qualify for. So it's kind of our catch-all for those that are necessarily ready to buy a bank income who you need. Credit help. Money help with saving for a down payment. We're just diggering out how to do when you come up with it. So that's one of the reasons that are in our 50s. It's a big one for our leads because people are very interested in putting out their credit. But then we have, you know, easier typical doing business systems programs, FHA, USDA, ADA, so we're talking about that all the time. So when they're getting to our 50s, they're seeing those and they can go and click on those and those are follows, right? So they're describing their information to us and then we're pulling up with them. But I would say, probably, those are the 60% of the people that I message with our databases because I'm in and I'm direct messaging out of social media accounts from myself. They're going directly to the application because they understand that without the application, there's a lot of information that I'm missing that I can't help them decide whether or not they're going to be all work. So is most of the lead flow in the DMs or over in your SNP feed? So I would say probably about 60% of the applications are coming directly from DMs. The other 40% are those that are going in through the lead funnels and that we're following up with after they've done the lead funnel to have a conversation whether they're asking questions because it's interesting, right? So different social media platforms have different ways that you can direct message or you can't. So TikTok, you have to follow and they have to follow you to be able to direct message them. So it's very difficult people to direct message you on TikTok unless I'm actively following them and they're following me. So again, we can let them hop over to Instagram. They can message me there or they can just hop onto the SNP feed and make a 15-minute phone call appointment with me or go through one of the funnels and then reach out and then we connect with them then. Yeah, so on your the one where it's the home program there to kind of get on the path towards home ownership, obviously they're going to some kind of funnel. What's this is me now geeking out? What's the back end of the CRM on that if I can ask? So lead pops is the funnel. I'm a big fan of lead pops. Once that happens it's going into verse which is bot system where there's automated text messaging going back and forth between the consumer who's just filled out their information and then currently we're playing it into what we call daily AI where it's being mirrored so that I can step in if the box is unable to answer the questions and manually take over the conversation from there. Yeah, daily.ai CRM I believe if I recall. That is it. We are in the process of working with a couple of different other CRMs to possibly change that though so that we can live and host everything in one CRM. Right. Yep, simplify your life. What is the most popular, most utilized funnel of the ones you've mentioned that are on your SNP feed here? I would say it's probably the blueprint or the road home. Road home because people want to understand hey can I qualify? How much? All that stuff. So a lot of first time home home buyer stuff. Exactly. Yep. Okay, very interesting. Love that. What's been has anything shocked you or surprised you on either side of the coin positive or negative on your social journey? I guess probably the one thing that shocked me the most is the amount of engagement that we get and I guess more so just the lack of information that's out there I guess for them. It's either we have a lack of education in our school system for financing and understanding credit or we're not teaching it because a lot of the consumers that I talk with they just don't know anything about credit or they don't know anything about finance. So I think that's probably the biggest shocker to me and it's probably been the one piece that's driving me to do more and more and to want to do a podcast and to want to hop on conversations like this is so that we can try to help educate as many of the consumers that we can. Well I can tell you for sure I know you're a dad of three young children mine are 21 and 18 and they of course recently come through high school and the school they go to they actually give them the day Ramsey education right so there's some good to that meaning wise dad watch out for that but the I had a conversation or a debate with my older son about yeah he's like you know oh why don't need a phyco score I'm like hold on let's let's time out why do you think you don't need a phyco score it's like all said well Dave says this Dave says that you know I'm like well let's talk about the real world and you know why that's actually not 100% accurate son you know so they're either not being fed their information or some of it's not necessarily 100% accurate for operating in the modern world right yeah and I think there's a there's a obviously one of the things I try to teach my children is there's balance right yeah we don't take everything from one person and that's right there's life experiences too not only just the education I mean no get me wrong I could go into a rabbit hole when it comes to the education and where we think we are and what information we've been provided and how that changes as we get into the real world and we we adjust our our thinking but I applaud their school for even giving them Dave Ramsey right because that's going to give them information on budgeting and how to kind of deal with finances hopefully they're not going to be living paycheck to paycheck but yeah you're right like there's there's other aspects of it that that doesn't teach that they could get from somewhere else and that's kind of where I feel like I would like to be able to come in for those types of people to explain like look you're right dead is bad there's a lot of dead is bad but there's also some good dead and in order to have good debt you have to have good phyco scores and so in order to have good phyco scores you have to understand how to work the system because it is a system you know the phyco scoring model is a is a is a system that has to be worked it's a profit maker is what it is yes you know that's why that's not going anywhere anytime soon no you know we've heard about the alternate phyco scores for years and still haven't really seen them well I mean we've got the vantage score I mean that's what experienced eco-faxing transient went and created once they heard that we were going to an alternative to the phyco score model so that they didn't lose their money but I mean it's there and it's not really any better than the phyco score model it's very similar it just has different impacts on different things you know what I mean right but you still need to have an established history of paying off debt yeah you still have to be you still have to show that you can borrow money and pay it back right exactly all right I noticed I see Homebot somewhere in your funnels I'm curious to what degree that's part of your overall process so Homebot is for those of our clients who are literally already closed it gives our clients the ability to keep track of a conservative estimate of value for their home they can track their mortgage payments they can track their mortgage balances kind of play with different things it's a tool so yeah that's kind of where we're at with that one so now I mean I see you it's in your funnel about like you know what's your home worth CMAs and all that is that much of a thing for you not really I mean I'm sure you probably talked to plenty of real estate agents recently there's not a lot of people interested in selling their houses because they have their 2% interest rate what's your home worth less than last month how's that right yeah but a lot more than it was last year true true all perspective right 100 percent no I'm just curious because I do see some people using that as part of a lead capture process obviously it's for existing homeowners but you know it can be used for people that are out shopping so a lot of our customers who are coming through the funnels have the opportunity to jump in and start using it to start searching for homes we don't really push too much because we want to make sure that our clients are pretty approved before they start shopping for houses yes 100 percent okay any big plans for changes you're making this year in 2023 to your content strategy to channels to types of content honestly I think it's a lot of more of the same gonna spend a little bit more time working with the longer form content creating some more informational educational maybe some pieces that might be able to help I mean we're working on a class right now there's a lot of first time home buyer classes out there but most people don't know where to find them so because we have a platform where a lot of people have found us and they feel comfortable and can trust us we're planning on creating some sort of first time home buyer class to give them the ability to go out on our social media platform start playing around with it and maybe learn a little bit more about the process that way is that going to be like you on video and stuff educational content I think people get enough of me on video I'm planning on making it a little bit more fun a little bit more interactive kind of like a interactive slideshow with some video yeah I mean there's there's no reason to recreate the wheel there's a lot like I said there's a lot of first time home buyer classes online so I've gone out and took a look at a lot of them so we've got a lot of the same information we're just going to try to play with it to see how we can make it more engaging and a little bit more fun so that way people can actually finish it and feel like they've learned something yeah I was doing some research on that as well rocket used to have one I forget what the name of it was and if they they changed it it used to be like on this thinkific platform fannie Mae as you probably know has one so I'm looking at some doing some stuff there as well let's compare now it's perhaps yeah I would love to I mean I like I said I I love to collaborate because like I said I hit I there's a lot of stuff I don't know and I love to get more information and work with other people because the the more we collaborate the the better off our consumers will be and the more information they're going to have all right well this has been awesome I do appreciate you making time and you're busy probably keeping you from making videos or at least talking to some somebody wanting to do alone with you so in the show notes people I'm going to put links it's mortgage dad of free for Instagram and TikTok of course it's the same because Josh is smart he knows about brand continuity so it's mortgage dad of three over on Instagram as well and then loan behold from correct same on YouTube yeah it's everywhere my friend there you go man smart so those are all the places you can follow Josh anything else you want to tell the listener before we sign off honestly everybody have fun enjoy life and don't sweat the the media because most of it's just fear mongering keep going and enjoy life right on all right Josh we appreciate it very very much links will be in the show notes people if you like this episode you know what to do leave us a review or share it with somebody and until the next time we'll see you on the next episode bye for now you so hey guys what's up real quick you heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before And I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans, you need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. 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