How this Loan Officer Closed $16 Million in Referrals from Agent Classes

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, everybody, what's up, Jeff Zimfer? Time for another episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast coming at you fast and furious in this episode. Before we do, I want to remind you that this episode is brought to you by my agent classes, my agent classes. The online turnkey done with you platform for you to predictably and consistently get in front of maximum agents in minimum time. What am I talking about? I'm talking about you leading with an educational platform in your local market, becoming the leader, attracting agents to you instead of chasing agents, how, by hosting educational classes online or in person and imagine hosting a class once a month, turnkey where everything is done for you, the PowerPoint, the speaker notes, the handouts, the invites over email and SMS and text, the video tutorial of training you how to teach the class, the custom marketing flyer with your headshot logo on it, everything, turnkey, push button, ready to go, and you can get in front of agents consistently every single month like clockwork, sift and sword, you choose which agents you want to work with or not, you don't chase agents, they come to you, works like gangbusters, it's called my agent classes, you want to learn more about it? I am taking a few very select people and having a conversation to see if this is a fit for you. You've heard the testimonials and stories by now so that you know this works. You know that the top producers in the country consistently use agent classes to grow their business and get more agent referrals. Now the question is do you want to do the same? What are you going to do about it? Here's what you do. I want you to go to myagentclass.com. Link is in the show notes but go to myagentclass.com and what you can do is grab a 30-minute conversation with me where we'll get acquainted, learn more about each other and see if this is the right fit for you, join our group of elite performers where we meet every single week and hold each other accountable, not only do we talk about realtor marketing and getting more referrals but we talk about digital marketing, the hybrid loan officer and YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and video marketing. You name it, we talk about it, we do it, we implement and maybe it's right for you, myagentclass.com. Okay so this week I've got special guest who, here's the beauty of social media, right? I was able to connect with this gentleman Chris Madden out in Syracuse, New York, who his Instagram feed came across my Instagram feed and I was noticing the content he was doing and then by the way the content was really good, really clear and concise and what I noticed also was that he, as I clicked through and went to his bio, he had this cool thing called the Grow or Plateau Academy and I was like what is that? So I dug a little further, what I found out is Chris and I are cut from the same cloth, right? You know I'm a big believer in doing classes, you know I'm a big believer in combining the online with the offline, the hybrid loan officer, you've heard me here talk about leveraging classes as the way to quickest way, to quickly and easily get more agent referrals. Well I love it when I find a loan officer who's out in the wild and doing this and we don't even know each other, right? So just once again proves my point. So he and I have this conversation about how he gets, I think his volume is 20 million a year, I think he said 80% or the dominant amount of that comes from these workshops that he does. So he's going to break down how he does this workshop once a month, what he talks about, how he gets butts in the seats, the results it's had and his whole system for doing this to basically turn on and off the spicket for getting real estate agent conversations and referrals and where social media plays a role in that and so forth. So hopefully you like this episode and we put the links to all the stuff we talk about in the show notes. If you want to check out more about my special guest Chris Madden. So right now let's get into this week's show. Chris Madden welcome to the show. Cool thanks for having me, appreciate it. It's a pleasure. You know that's one of the great things about social media today is you know I heard somebody say it's networking at scale and it certainly is for you and I because I came across you on Instagram. I'm not sure what the context of what of that was. Do you recall how we connected originally? I think actually you just followed me and I saw that you follow me and I was like oh this is really cool. So I sent you a DM and just kind of like hey appreciate the follow, I love your podcast and that's how we kind of like and linked up. Yeah, somehow you came across my feed on Instagram and I was looking at your content and I'm like wow this is pretty good man, guys doing some stuff and so I think what happened was I just yeah DMed you or you saw me follow you whatever next thing you know here you are on the dang podcast right? Yeah, it's super cool because I mean being in you know Syracuse New York we're not a super big city so it's kind of it's nice social media has kind of made the world a lot smaller. Hey man I spent the first part of my life my some of my formidable formidable years in Buffalo. So far I know what winter and snow is all about. It's a little chilly yeah. I moved from there to New England and Maine and I finally got out of there and moved to San Diego. Yes. There you go. I haven't seen this snowflake in a while that. Only when I drive to it choose to go you know. Yeah enough about that let's talk about Chris Madden for those that don't know give us the quick background or bio how long you been in the biz. Yeah so graduate college I got into actually digital marketing so that's kind of where the I kind of always mean to you know Instagram and Facebook but was in social media marketing for a while got into throwing loans my wife's family owned mortgage company here in Syracuse so I kind of just like I'll undo that help them with their marketing and kind of I had investment properties and always kind of like numbers and kind of analyzing deals and that kind of thing and I ended up getting licensed and been doing it for almost six years now. Wow six years nice man congratulations. Yeah thank you. And give us a sense 2020 like what do you what does that look like for you for units in volume. Yeah so volume wise I'll probably push in about 20 million now I average low size here in Syracuse is it's smaller you know we're not in the 250 range our average low size is probably between 141 50. But yeah it's going well it's it's 2020 is great 2021 is probably going to be even better so yeah so you're yeah the average low size you're you're making a lot of donuts over there. What you do it's a volume thing here in our right right I'm through the factory okay what's so what's your main source of business real referrals and it's slowly getting to the point where Instagram is actually becoming another referral source for me I'll get DMs once in a while from different people that I've never even come contact with but primarily it's it's real referrals. Okay I want to let's let's take the DM thing for a moment we're going to come back to the realtor piece in just a moment but tell me then how that happens because some people listen and some believe some don't don't believe and it's not like it's a flood it's not like it's rain and deals from Instagram right but how does that happen for you. So what I do I just pump out content right like I might be talking to a classroom with no one in it but you know a virtual or in-person classroom no no no I'm talking about just like like hypothetically right like it's okay it's a content someone might see it someone might not right so you know I just try and pump out content as much as I can you know our market things get busy right I had a challenge but I want to do 30 pieces of content 30 days it didn't really happen but for me it's been consistency just making sure I try and get time to do that pump out content and then the way I think people have kind of been DMing me is they'll see a piece of content that I did you know shoot spring maybe March or April and they had a question on it and they'll just ask question hey I saw this piece of content where you're talking about you know PMI like what is that why need it that kind of thing I just kind of shoot a message back and forth and it might not current turn it into a deal might not turn it into anything but it's at least a hand I shook so it's a virtual handshake yeah exactly it's like we started it's like you know scaling the new modern version of networking at scale yeah and then it goes past like even even like realtors do the same thing where I've pumped out pieces of content and they you know they like the way I explain certain things and I've had realtors DM me asking to have lunch and you know on the lower side that's like we're like bagging that bunch of people that's kind of nice to have too so very interesting so reverse prospecting you're attracting agents instead of chasing agents exactly have you used Instagram then as a tool to find target engage and drive conversations with agents from your side like you talk about maybe like doing like a live stream or that kind of thing that we've done together or how about how have you used Instagram perhaps to drive real estate agent relationships oh sure so what I usually like to try and do is if I put out a piece of content there's sometimes where I'll go to the realtor's office and we'll do a piece of content together I might tag them in it I mentioned the live stream that we'll do together how about prior to that are you using are you doing like for example I you know I've talked others who use Instagram kind of like a CRM where you're gonna comment and engage on realtors content prior to a phone call yep so I do that a lot so prior to even like reaching out to see if they want to grab lunch comment on their stuff I'll like their stuff maybe they became a top producer in the month of June I'll shoot them at DM saying hey congrats on you we're a top producer in the month of June that's great congratulations I'm happy for you I'll keep comments here on their stuff and then as time maybe a couple weeks go by I'm like hey you want to like meet up for lunch because at that point there's we kind of get a sense of my personality and kind of like who I am just through my content and through my stories like you know you can kind of tell that I'm married I have a daughter and I have a dog through looking at my stories and that kind of thing so it kind of makes like a cold call like a lot warmer so there you have a sense of who I am as a person before we even have lunch before we leave for coffee or whatever is that your primary strategy for you know creating agent awareness and relationships that's one of my strategies I'd probably say my primary source of kind of shaking realtor's hands is through that grower plant grower plateau academy that I have from where I do get into actually like teaching them how to use social media to develop their personal brand that's probably my number one all right so let's then make that pivot I'm just to grabbing a couple things on my screen here I definitely want to talk about that because that is one of the things that really I was drawn to you right when I saw that you do this thing it's called grow or plateau academy explain what that is so yeah so kind of leaning on my digital background digital marketing background I just found that a lot of realtor's maybe aren't using social media correctly or they don't know how to use it and they want to they're just not sure where to start so I started doing it pre-COVID kind of designing it with a lady here in Syracuse who actually puts online courses together but kind of outlined it and you know as things do just kind of get busy it's kind of like one of those like half-built bridges that like I just didn't like really finish and I finally the light bulb really clicked for me during COVID last year when everything was shut down and you know that's when really social media for me at least in our area was like oh my god now I'm forced to do that right so that was the light bulb for me to really get this you know in action and we finished it last April ish and what I do is I kind of reach out to different brokerages here in Syracuse we're around the area have a couple we have a GSA R here in Syracuse greater association of realtors where I teach classes at it's designed to have you know 10 10 realtors in the room at the same time it's meant to be interactive so there's you know I'll teach you know a section maybe it's you know what are the core values and then you break out into doing an activity an exercise well it's not just me lecturing you for an hour hour and a half it's you know it's a team kind of thing we're like your bounce ideas off each other um but that's been you know that's been probably my primary source of you know shaking the real earth's hand and getting to know them and are you doing that class or those classes by yourself or do you say you have somebody that teams up with you know if I do them by myself um right now I do them by myself um I do have some ideas about you know bringing in some maybe some speakers of that kind of thing I also would love to maybe get it certified for like CE credits um which is you know in New York state with some lot of hopes we have to jump through here but um ultimately I'd love to have like you know some marketing people that are really great in Syracuse being our proximity to New York City that are really great in marketing very knowledgeable that I'd love to have on for speakers yeah so I'm on the website here and we'll put a link in the show notes but it's grow or plateau academy.com um and I'm looking at what you call the workshop it says learn the ropes in under two hours so that's kind of like the main workshop that you drive people to yeah that's like the really the flagship right now um that's really the main course that um that I kind of teach right now really it's part one is like creating your personal brand and then you know you're doing those exercises and that kind of thing and then part two is okay now let's start creating content let's do um you know body text headlines let's get into like what is what's a good piece of content for um well how do you find pieces of content how do you even come up with stuff because that's another thing that I've run into it was like you know really there's telling me like well I don't really know what's the post right and like I tell them like anything can be content like any if you are shopping in a grocery store and you have like a weird situation happens to you that kind of humanizes you right like something goofy something silly like that that happens in your life or in your family like that's piece of content um educational content that's kind of what I focus on um I try and educate both borrowers and realtors so um you know there's I always even talk about ways you can um try and find pieces of content to uh educate people on so like going to Google and just like typing in like I'm in question comment real estate questions you know probably come with like 20 a list of 20 or 50 right and yes put on and just go up so this initial workshop right um by the way does it have a name? No I just call it the workshop right now um personal branding workshop kind of what I call it right now yeah so it's roughly two hours right and you're gonna share with them some of the fundamental building blocks of right personal branding um you unique value proposition core values etc a content strategy all that so that takes about two hours what happens after that um tell us about how you're you know using that audience to the next step what does that look like? So what I do is I put um all the realtors that show up to that course I'll put them in a CRF for myself um and what I do and what I found is they actually the course gives them enough information to kind of do it on their own but they're gonna need kind of me for help right like they're gonna need me as a resource so that's kind of gets them back to like contacting me again to be like hey Chris I had an idea to do you know xyz uh what do you think? so those are the kind of conversations I had after the course where like you know maybe they're not comfortable going on camera and I notice that they haven't posted a video of themselves I'll might reach I'll reach out and say hey you know I noticed that you haven't like you know jumped on camera anything like that I'd love to do a you know a video with you it kind of breaks the ice it makes it easier when you have more people on camera it looks a bit less awkward too so I'll do that to be kind of like for something to do it um because as soon as I do that and you see kind of like the comments and the engagement that they're getting kind of light bulb I see like go off from your head like my god I shouldn't be doing this forever do you get a decent uh uptake you know what I mean acceptance rate on that offer to do the video with them yes yeah absolutely because I've noticed that a lot of people like are really uncomfortable on camera and it took me a while to get comfortable on camera sometimes I'm not um you know and a couple of the first live streams I did I did it with like three or four people on the on the thing where I just kind of moderated it to kind of just get my feet wet so it's kind of like what I'm kind of educating the realtors to do is just get your get your feet wet like bring on a home inspector that you work with and like oh just don't talk for days you know like bring on an attorney that you that that will talk and like I do just asking questions you act like a talk show host exactly you know 100% right you are you are the host um that's the easy way to get started um I mean what that's what this is right I don't work or anything I just show up and let you guys talk yeah like there's no notes it's super organic it like you don't sound like kind of like a robot you're just like cabinet conversation um back to the CRM for a moment um how do you because I'm because obviously you don't get 100% right if you get 10 people show up you're not converting all 10 of them not all 10 are taking your next step offer so what do you do then like to I'm a big advocate by the way a huge fan of building your own realtor database we all should be doing that but what are you sending them how you staying top of mine otherwise um it'll be um I'll send like a video myself right so I use a program called bama that I'll embed like a video of maybe it's like a tip right like an Instagram tip so I'll send them an email or maybe it's a text message whatever however they like to be communicated but I'll send them you know monthly or biweekly just a piece of content that might be specific to like Facebook like hey here's a new trend um that's working on Facebook for this realtor in this market or it might be like here's an Instagram tip of how to do like a real or something like that so that's kind of a highlight trying to stay like kind of top of mine typically you sharing the tip yes yep so do you doing a quick little video one to three minutes whatever saying hey what's up it's crazy hey here's a hot tip that you know will help you do xyz exactly just want to pop in say hi and kind of saw this tip that I saw if I'll mark it down in let's say in Buffalo this reel is really cool here's what they're doing right yeah that's cool and how do you then stay on top of that where do you get those ideas from uh I'm on my phone like I'm disgusting about so like I felt a ton of people um so it's honestly just me on my phone like laying watch TV in bed just kind of so you follow a realtor's real estate trainers coaches speakers yeah you know marketing people you know absolutely like I know like I know you had Jennifer Beeson on a while ago like I follow her um Arjun Neil like all those guys um excuse me you know you are uh what's the what's the word what is the word um begins with a see gosh this is embarrassing I'm blank curating thank you you're curating ideas yeah and just send to them okay so let's let's continue this all right you're doing that for some period of time whatever it is you know obviously the L.O.s are like okay okay but how do you get alone from that that's always so that's always the thing like I always get asked like so what's like the ROI of doing something like it's a snowball right like you have to keep doing it you have to be consistent about it consistency and social music is key you know you can't like post one piece and then kind of fall off the map you gotta be consistent about it and um I like I view it as like a digital handshake you know if you don't shake any digital hands you're not giving yourself an opportunity to get a client or a loan so if you said you're probably that's your primary source of of business right of of I think you said 20 million if I so it's primary source of 20 million um uh walk me through little little bit detail though in terms of how that moves from they come to the workshop I'm gonna you know I'm gonna take this the full length man you know me come on yeah full length all the way to at some point are you asking for a meeting are they asking is it a mix of both and then you and then I mean I know what happens between you and me you know that I know this I just want to articulate it for those that are trying to connect the dots so sure so okay so let's go right from like the beginning right like I have I have the class I teach the class um 10 real or show up you know it's decent you know it's pretty good number um don't they go off and maybe let's say four of them um are starting to post stuff on Instagram right all of those four I might reach out to them be like hey I love this piece of content great job I'll give them you know feedback and whatever um after that like they've they've met me in person they've kind of gotten a sense of my personality how I kind of operate how I am as a person at that point I'll meet with them you know for lunch or for coffee whatever it is and I don't even talk about loans I stick to like what's gonna what marketing right like what's gonna help you grow your business that's what I stick to um and I'm kind of just like I'm here to help you grow your business so um right after that usually it it turns into like they have a comfort level with me they start to trust me um and it has turned into um me being kind of like having I would say just in the last probably three months probably three realiders that are like huge advocates for me where they might have a pre-quality from another lender but they're like no no no like you use Chris like I know him I've known him for a few months like hmm so they're they're advocating for and that's what I'm always trying to build right is someone who's gonna be kind of like my a champion for me love that love that and um I I guess sometimes I you know when I think about what I'm gonna say I'm cautious for you listeners is like Jeff stating the obvious so I hope this isn't me stating the obvious but do you think that they would be well I mean I guess the answer to what I'm trying to get to is this is you're showing up in a different way you're not like the key points what did you say during the last two three minutes you didn't show up and talk about loans you didn't show up and talk about how you can close in six seconds and all this stuff you showed up and and really cared and invested your attention into them right that old cliche people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care I mean it's a cliche for a reason because it's true um and so you're just pouring in and investing to people and your hope is or your bet is is that the the return on that will be as you said they're gonna like you trust you feel comfortable with you and they're gonna be like geez Chris is really helping me grow my business Joe blow over here or Sally Q over here these these other lenders they're good right and they perform but it's what Chris is helping me with right it's Chris is giving me more value right like I uh you know I used to before before this you know I'd go and like yeah I'm responsive like we can close loans and you know 30 days bubble blah blah but like essentially like they're I'm sitting on the table I'm thinking like well if you can't do that like you're not doing your job right like what are value giving me right so I really try and stick to and that's what I like to do I like to try and help you know realtors grow their business I like helping people um and and and this whole personal brand thing is how I do that with realtors how often do you do these workshops um I try and do one at least once a month um if you know I'd like to do more um in the summer it's difficult um I've noticed like it's just it's just difficult to get you know in the busy time of year it's it's hard to get you know realtors in the door but usually once a month and then um also I'm looking on your website here you do have this this link how dare you offer one-on-one coaching what is that about so um that actually came up with COVID um so in your state for a while until fairly recently we couldn't have you know kind of written groups indoors um and I did a couple of these um the workshops virtually on zoom and it just to me doesn't have that same effect you can kind of sense people kind of doze enough or you know it's just easy to not pay attention as much as you would be in person um so yeah so a couple of realtors reached out to me um and asked if they could do like a one-on-one session um rather than a group because they wanted to kind of you know they were forced to use social media kind of like I mentioned before and uh doing the one-on-one things just kind of took off like they kind of spread throughout the office and the a Chris will do like a one-on-one thing with you right in our board room and I was like uh maybe I should put this on the website if people are uncomfortable being in a group right now so um I prefer to do the one-on if it's between zoom and a one-on-one session I'd rather do the one-on-one person you'd rather do the one-on-one yeah I think that's all a personal choice um because that's the same thing I do a lot of um both zooms in persons and one-on-ones with real estate agents um and for me personally here's how I like to run it I like to do if I if I don't know the agent I like to do the one-on-one over zoom first because that's just discovery you know what I mean share what I found and again this is all to each their own but what I found is if I want to do a bunch of screen sharing and stuff well obviously that's really easy to do over zoom I was at a little state office a couple weeks ago and we were looking at this agent's Facebook ads and and you know you're just like right on top of each other's like all around the laptop yeah all right let's let's get get some social distance here shall we yeah no but um do you um do you have any criteria or qualifiers before somebody gets on your one-on-one you know I don't um you know if if someone reaches out and puts in the effort to actually reach out to me and say like hey I want to grow my business that's really the only qualifier I would need they actually put in the effort to contact me so that kind of tells me they are they want to grow got it and you have a form right on your website for that yep I'm curious have you thought I'm sure you have your smart guy and you know digital I see people do who do this and they use calendar yep yes so I do have calendar um I kind of got messed up on my account but I think it's been squared away so yes I do have calendar it's actually probably I should probably make it a little bit more prominent on my website um but well obviously your link about one-on-one you know get in touch if you just want to book an appointment as you well know that could just be a calendar link right and because the back and forth can really be right all right okay and by the way just uh I thought of this a moment ago because you know your primary platform is Instagram right yes um but you're not just talking about Instagram in your workshop are you no so I talk about um I do I'll do Facebook I talk about you know YouTube I have not gone into like really TikTok yet uh mostly it's it's it's Facebook YouTube and Instagram sure um the big three yeah exactly I you know a little bit of like some people ask you a couple questions on LinkedIn um and that's just to me it's a different piece of content that goes on there versus Instagram if it's not educational kind of thing um you know you're not gonna put a you know a story of like you walk in your dog or something like that on your LinkedIn or anything like that so yeah I mean we we have a class on Instagram or on LinkedIn as well but yeah each platform is kind of unique the only ones I think that are similar as and you know this as well as Facebook and Instagram it's relatively easy to cross post and share similar content on that but yeah absolutely and you can engage with the comments so you kind of on on on YouTube and LinkedIn but I think Instagram just opens up as a better platform I think for dialogue at least to me um to go back and forth and comment and DM people yeah well you know depending on your preferences also what you avoid on Instagram is a lot of the political stuff and you know the um polarizing comments absolutely yes all right let me think about this how I'm looking at your Instagram and your content and you've got very professional looking videos professional what I mean by that is good lighting you know good audio are um are you editing any videos not um actually that is taken all those videos are done by like a phone stand I have here and like a chair that's like on the other side of this I was computer or one or two take guy yeah pretty much I just kind of go through it and you know trying to get it done um there are a lot of times when like I can't keep tripping over words and sure it takes me like a while but um I know I don't edit anything yet um come with some of the other other uh pieces of content were videos that um there were probably two minute videos that I used as a kind of a ad campaign on Facebook and I just screenshot of it and use it as a piece of content so I kind of have videos and photos just from one shoe so kind of put some money on Facebook ads behind some of your content um I used to yep I used to um I don't do it anymore really um that whole phone curious um not not really now I kind of stuff what's that we got us here yeah no it was not that's why I stopped it interesting yeah I'm looking at some of your um interesting your content that's one thing I get across to like in in like the course too is like I'm always worried about like over producing it and like oh it looks bad or like what if I sound weird or whatever I'm like you know like these phones now can shoot in 4k like you don't need anything crazy you can just put the do a selfie in a video yourself that's I'd be a great piece of content and sometimes actually I think a lot of the times when a piece of content isn't like produced or edited or anything like that I think it gets better engagement right what's up with you and reels I haven't done any reels yet I know I gotta get on that um I for some reason my Instagram account is not letting me do reels right now oh yeah I think it's I might have to update it or I actually talked to some do at the Apple store that was like you might just have to delete the app and like re-upboard it's yeah the other updated or do that man I wouldn't want to do that yeah I know it kind of terrifies me so that's why it's kind of a bad part you gotta lose all your content and comments and all that stuff yeah was everything yeah so forget what he said did you did you recently update the app though Instagram uh yes I did yeah still having a problem with reels no having a problem with reels yeah kind of weird I say I really don't want to delete the app or delete the account or anything so yeah I mean open a second or whatever with Instagram you know that kind of stuff getting it yeah yeah wouldn't frustrate me uh the customer so I wish I could just cost them away and get it done but yeah and by the way the other thing that's cool is on your um your website for your workshops and stuff which is the grow or plateau academy you also have a quite an extensive list of recommended resources um it's it's actually really good I mean a lot of these on here um you've got them broken down into categories so how often then I mean uh our agents asking you hey do you know how to excerpt you know good resource for why right yeah all the time all the time and that's what prompted me to put these resources together um and those are all resources that like probably two or three agents ask the same questions so like like ball went off my head like I should probably like put this on my site so they can like you know kind of have a little bit of like this encyclopedia for themselves so um that's what prompted that and um it's been stupid they like they love it yeah I'm curious that they go to your site as a destination to browse those resources yeah so I've noticed uh like that's one of the most popular like probably landing spots on on the site is that and I've noticed that like talking to the agents that I work with they um they might share like you know someone might have the same issue in their office and they might reference my site rather than Google's you're like oh Chris like taught me how to do x y and z here's his here's the link to a site go to the resource pages to answer that exact question um I'm curious if you have thought about um taking this concept of these these classes the academy um and then also creating a Facebook group I have um um I have uh I haven't done it quite yet um but it's definitely like in like that um the CE credits um I have you know I I would love to you know offer more classes you know specific to Instagram specific to you to that kind of thing um and also having the group one that's not really in the in the near future I think once things at least our market kind of settles down a little bit that's something I'll probably be focusing on um this fall winter is kind of creating a group there yeah I've seen people do that successfully because as you know it's like you know it's that moving parade who are coming through your workshops some are getting one-on-one some aren't and there were all busy fading from at least a group be it Facebook or elsewhere you know is a place to kind of build a fence around them and stay top of mine yep yeah absolutely yeah and like this whole like this is like essentially like version one of grower plateau you know like I kind of like it's almost like I'm like putting the like the rails down of the track while the trains coming at the same time like I'm just kind of like building it as like people ask questions or like offer a good idea maybe or whatever I'm just kind of like version one and I always like tell realtor's like version one or one piece of content is better than like perfecting it and making sure it's like the absolute perfect thing because it's never gonna be perfect and then you just post it right so something's better than nothing yeah 100% unbelievable I totally get what you're saying I've been there man on a weekly basis building the airplane while it's flying yeah exactly what else are you doing then that's got you you know passionate in terms of lead-gen marketing that kind of stuff um so a lot of times like I talk to um really you know we have some some pretty good pieces of of technology that makes it easier for a realtor's kind of roller business um one thing I'm working on to implement to our team is like where like a realtor can update the free call themselves and you know I'm sure in other markets that's like probably commonplace but here in this area at least in in New York state that's not something that is prevalent at all right so when I when I you know talk it when they start talking to me about like oh let me like learn about your loan process after we talk about like the helping them roller business you know I share them like you know different things I'm trying to work on to to make the team better and make it easier for you guys rather than reaching out to me you guys can just do it yourself yeah yeah let's offer you use for that uh it's called Stadkey yeah I think I've heard it was it again Stadkey Stadkey yeah exactly yeah actually I was listening to your pockets I heard it from one of your pockets um and um the other thing I'm working on I'd like to do is um do kind of like um like a summit like a business kind of summit where I bring you know maybe a panel of realtor's in and 10 realtor's that I work with and get them there and just talk about how they grew their business because I think if you ask you know 10 realtor's how they grew their business you're like a 10 difference so that's another thing I'm think I'm working on planning for the fall um where we do it maybe like one of these local breweries that we have around here or whatever um and just doing kind of like a roundtable discussion um about how they grew their business because like I said you'll get time for answers yeah absolutely 100% great idea I've seen that executed very well um and of course like we said at the start of this you know you're the MC the host yet but you attach yourself to them and you get that additional level of perception of of dare I say celebrity but also status you know what I mean yeah relationships will come out of that and most of those realtors love to be acknowledged and most realtors don't mind sharing either if they have the right mindset you know there are those scarcity-blinded realtors but you don't invite them you know are they yeah client uh yeah but that's you know like you know I'm being you know I'm 33 and a lot of the realtors that I you know I work with are you and a lot of them are of the mentality where like there's plenty of business for everybody um so one of the you know questions that I got asked was like did you think you're gonna be cannibalizing or like well someone copy you know how I you know get business but like again you're gonna get 10 different answers and one one one way might not work for you another might well they're white money so um you know I didn't really worry about you know stepping out anybody's toes or anything like that I just think it'd be a great no another great resource to to provide to realtors so yeah no scarcity mindsets you know those people asking those questions meanwhile somebody's actually doing that and getting business versus overthinking it you know exactly that's awesome yeah I can see you're doing Facebook lives pretty frequently too yeah so I use a program um called uh Streamyard um it's a great program allows you to kind of stream you know up to eight people um on a live stream then you can download the video and what I always do is um I I'll have you know uh I had a financial person on a few weeks ago where we were specifically talking about financial planning for realtors um since you know a lot of them you don't have access to a 401k or whatever but how the can they you know tax plan for taxes um how can they you know save for retirement that kind of thing um and I kind of reel around that I work with and we were just kind of going back and forth and he was talking for the most part we just played talk show host um another one I had a home aspect round we talking about home inspections and then we kind of got off because he had investment properties and we got into investment properties which branched into like Bitcoin all that sort of stuff so it's uh it's been it's been pretty cool I want to have you know maybe some attorneys on there and just kind of keep doing it consistent yeah it's just again it's content it's a way to stay kind of top of mind I'm looking at it it looks like back in April you also had a real estate agent on like Q&A with Ryan Millard well I'm a liar yep yep I had M Corey um you know and like I said there's a couple realtors where um I have plans for I think in the next couple weeks we're gonna do one um but they flip houses so I was like man this would be great if you guys could talk about like what you look for in a flip like how do you find them um you know that kind and just educating people who might be interested in flipping and um and even if you're not you can learn yeah by the way along those lines first of all I think that's a great concept and then kind of a you know sister to that concept is not just flipping but also investing whether you flip or hold because let's face it myself included there's a lot of people that are again seeing what's happening in real estate the value the appreciation and you know now we got all these influencers that are all you know we got crank grand cardone and all these people like you know talking about buying real estate um stock and so my point on that is is the consumers also are interested about that and I'm stealing this completely from somebody who I had on the podcast Chris Smith who has a company called Curator and he's been asking his database of real estate agents you know he's basically putting it out there saying my wife and I are finally think and this guy does marketing for real estate agents so he knows the real estate game and he's like my wife and I finally have decided we want to invest in real estate so this is a guy who's been in real estate for many many years has never invested property knows the business in the you know intimately but doesn't know that little nuance of being a real estate investor right yeah he's putting the challenge out to his real estate agent saying where's the content from you about becoming an investor yeah you know I mean not for the flip all that kind of stuff and the people on hgtv right but for the average person who's cautious and afraid wants to dip their toe in because that's by the way me as well you know so along those lines think about more content you can do around that team up with other people who understand that very very well and yeah yeah that'd be a great one you know I have you know I have 25 units myself you know yeah and we you know it's one of those things where you can like I think a lot of people are hesitant because you know they're nervous about doing with tenants or whatever it may be but I think yeah you're right like bring someone on that can educate people um about investing in what it takes what it's like what do you look for that kind of thing okay so is there any of your content yet dealing with that um I've done um let's see yes there's a get into like house hacking a little bit um which kind of dives into kind of building your room from your portfolio um so yeah there's there's some piece of the content to do dive into more yeah I'm serious because there's a few folks I'm trying to remember the individual's name who I had on um and that is that is stuff particularly on Instagram you do those videos I see your whiteboard stuff oh here it is right here Justin Brown um he uh similar to you owns a lot of rental units and that's a lot of what his content is is you get your whiteboard out or he's doing a real that shows the whole numbers how it nets out yeah that will also gain you a lot of engagement and also establish your authority because you're you know show it man come on yeah that's a great that's a great idea like I just popped in my head like when you were talking I was like shoot like I look at cap rate so like I can explain that I can look at you know cash on cash return like what does it mean like what do you look for so yeah and you might want to know that's what I do yeah you might want to think about creating your pillar content um and starting up that on youtube and then you know um repurposing that for the yeah exactly yep yeah what you get for for a youtube is some search but of course you can do the hashtags on Instagram as well yeah open the search so yeah I want to see that next from you all right you got it you'll see it all right that sounds awesome um all right so do you have your next uh you know event class your academy scheduled for anytime this year uh it's gonna be a layer in August um so last week of august um we uh as of right now tentatively because my my wife to do for our second baby it's coming up here so um so it'll be here uh I'll be here right here in staircase nice man it's gonna be in person right yep right in person as again as of right now um right now everything's open for us but um it'll be in person it'll probably be um between 10 and 12 probably probably 10 or 12 people there at this one and I don't know if I asked you this earlier but how do you invite how do you promote um so I we do um I have an email blessed I have a database of you know basically all the on real owners and the GSA are here and Syracuse has been really helpful um you know say it again yes I what is that GSA it's the greatest Syracuse area of Realtors for a realtor's got it yeah so when I'm doing an event or something like that they they pump it out to their database um when I if I'm doing it to a specific brokerage uh they'll send it you know west all their Realtors um and I just promote the promote the heck out of it on my Instagram what do you use to capture reservations um oh shoot you scared out of me an eventbrite or yeah there you go that bright yes or I'll use eventbrite or I use uh meetup meetup okay in meetup why hey there's a blast in the past that's funny okay yeah I think eventbrite's great for in-person meetings yeah um you know for sure uh the virtual ones not so much yeah yeah I had some issues with um eventbrite with the virtual one I just don't it I that's why all my people do if you're gonna do it over zoom you don't need it uh let's just go right to zoom now zoom of course is lacking and some of the marketing automation follow-up and all that but we got some work around so yeah that's awesome man and you know what you're gonna be presenting in August later this month rather so this one uh this this one wants to they just want to do the the personal branding course um the the normal course that I've been doing nothing like specific to YouTube or anything I think the people that are showing up to this one um I think are more like maybe newer agents I I get the sense that they're newer agents um that are just they might have their personal Instagram account but they don't really know how to use it to get business to get listings or to get new buyers so that's what's going on there yeah um so you and I are in the same lane I'm actually doing another class tomorrow um and this one is at a local golf club and the title agency here has been promoting it to it's one specific brokerage and they have 60 reservations from one specific brokerage wow yeah so they've done a good job yeah promoting it um that's awesome yeah yeah exactly it is oh I was I was gonna ask you do team up with affiliates uh I know it's in New York is an attorney state right correct so home warranty home you know um other affiliates who can help get realtors buts and seeds have you tried that yet yep so I have a couple uh attorneys that I work with that you know they'll they'll they'll throw it um I actually have had a couple of attorneys show up because it does kind of translate to to their world too um so yeah yeah I work with you know a lot of the attorneys that's another referral source to get butts in the seeds for this this class awesome well listen man I know you're busy and besides that you got a baby on the way too sure a lot of other stuff to prepare for I appreciate you um sharing your strategies in time with us once again I want to make sure people know how to connect with you on Instagram uh why don't you give us what your Instagram username is or handle whatever you call it yeah it's just it's just my name Chris Madden underscore hello yeah and that's M-A-D-D-E-N Chris M-A-D-D-E-N underscore hello exactly that's awesome and then I'll also put a link in the show notes if people want to check out your your website which is a grow or plateau academy.com great we'll check that out but follow him start looking at the content he's doing and uh swipe and deploy what you like exactly all right man I appreciate you tuning in and listeners uh as always if you like this episode please leave us a review and we'll see you on the next one bye for 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