How This Loan Officer is Growing to 100 + Units in Five Years

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, hey there, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and all other categories of species. Hello. This is Jeff Zimfer, host of the podcast mortgage marketing radio. So if you are tuning in, I appreciate you making time from your busy day, your busy life and selecting this podcast as one of the places you come, hopefully to learn, grow, evolve, maybe laugh once in a while and ultimately find value. That's what it's all about here. Hopefully you're finding value. I'm grateful to that and appreciate that. By the way, if you haven't left a review yet for us, wherever you're listening to this, you know, on the apples, the spotifies of the world, the Google podcasts, et cetera. If you're someone inclined, a review would be great. It, you know, does help us remain relevant and be deemed as a worthy podcast by the powers that be. So a review would be great. Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Also, listen, you want to go deeper, you want to stay connected, you want to have further conversation, engagement with myself and other podcast community members. If you haven't yet joined the podcast Facebook group, please do so. Go to Facebook and in the search bar, you can type in mortgage marketing radio, right? And the group will come up and you will be asked a few questions to be able to join. One requirement is that you must be, you know, ideally a mortgage vendor broker, professional loan officer. We do have some assistance in there, some marketing people and so forth, but that is really exclusively who the group is for. So once again, go to Facebook and do a search for a mortgage marketing radio with a group and jump in there. We do go live there once in a while. We've got some additional content and resources that we post in there. We've got a lot of great community members who share other things about what's working, et cetera. And find some value there. Okay. So this week, I've got kind of a unique episode. So often, not often, but once in a while, what happens is, you know, people DM me, they'll reach out to me on Instagram, Facebook, whatever. And you know, we'll start a dialogue or conversation. And what happens is I find that there's some interesting nuggets or points of discussion that you might benefit from as the listener might learn from. And this is the exact case today for today's special guest is Beth Imhoff. And Beth is only five years as an originator. And so I thought her story might be useful for you to hear how she's progressed from a former processor, former loan officer assistant to, you know, full-time originator. Just began her origination career roughly five years or less up in Lake Aswego, Oregon, which is a beautiful place and highly competitive place as well. Of course, she just recently switched to a new company. And so there's a little bit of that kind of transitioning process she's going through. But what's interesting is, 2020, she did 76 units for 26 mil. She's already at 50 units for 20 mil this so far and she's on her way to 50 mil. So I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with her about kind of her career growth trajectory, what she's done, how she's generated business, her sources, how she markets herself, her Instagram, her loan process, going after listing agents, this concept she has, you know, because oftentimes, loan officers will ask, hey, you know, how do I get realtor relationships? Well, there's a hundred different answers to that. And Beth has got some that have worked well for her. One of them is this concept called Four Doors. You'll hear about that. She'll talk about how she goes after listing agents and how she tries to always be the one who picks up the phone. So I think it's a good conversation, no matter where you're at, if you're well-tenured and experienced, this is good for some reminders, right? Because the fundamentals really never go out of style. And it is about relationships and connections with referral partners and past clients and so forth. But then if you're relatively new, right, as well, five years or less, let's say, I think there's some great learning lessons to take away from this conversation with Beth. So we're going to put links to her Instagram page and our Facebook page in the show notes. Mortgage is by Beth. If you want to search that on Instagram and Facebook, you'll definitely be able to pull her up and start following her and seeing all the cool content she puts out there. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Beth, welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. I'm excited to have you here as well. I love these kind of episodes because for the context of those listening, you know, sometimes people reach out like you and communicate over social media, whatever. And then we just start a dialogue and then I learn a little bit more about you. And I say, Hey, you know what, this would be a really great conversation to have and just record it. So other listeners can benefit. So before we get into that, want you give us a quick background or on yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so glad to be here. It was kind of hisment because I told you I had just discovered the pod and like was working through all these great back episodes with huge names that I knew. And then other names I didn't know, but still great people that had good content and ideas. So that's great. Yeah, then in the business for six years, I started as a processor, kind of got in, fell into that. I was a first time home buyer and had a really bad experience with a big, a big bank that I won't name and ended up my file being saved by a great local lender that I went to work for for six years, developed into like an L.O.A. and then started my own book of business and recently transitioned to a new company. So hired and assistant really excited about that. So how long have you been originating? I would say four or five years. I didn't spend much time processing and I did, you know, as an L.O.A. it was kind of a hybrid L.O.A. and then my own origination for those years. So let me understand this. You're buying a home. Was it your first home? Yeah, absolutely. And it was a terrible experience and then you got saved by this other local company which was an amazing experience. Connect the dots. How do you then go from wherever you were before to, hey, you know what, I think I could do this. Yeah. I mean, I was looking for a change anyway. My background was in marketing and I felt like I didn't have a really solid skill with that. So it was kind of great timing and I remember telling one of my sisters with my sounding board, I said, gosh, wouldn't it be fun for me to go and do mortgages like help people through this. It's so confusing. I really think I'm drawn to this and she said, that sounds awful and I think you're crazy. Which to me was like the way I knew that it was for me because she's usually my sounding board. If it sounded awful wall to her, I knew it was really like what I was being called to do. It's cheesy. That sounds. No, that's funny. I've heard that before some people have sounding boards where they're like one of them is, oh, yeah, that's a great idea. They do it. And then yours is the opposite. Oh, that sounds terrible. That's how you know it's a good idea. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so you could not have talked me out of the industry after that experience and I love it. Wow. Awesome. Good for you. All right. Originating four or five years. I know you, I'm going to look at our notes from our exchange. We had on Instagram here. You switched companies back in May of of this year. Yeah, just recently. So just a couple of months on, you know, getting my bearings here. Okay. So last year, 2020, you did 76 units for 26 mill, right? Yeah, that's, by the way, great. Fantastic. Thank you. And then through the end of July, just reading your notes here, you're currently projected for 48 units for 20 million so far in 2021. Yeah. So obviously already exceeding what you did last year. What percentage of your business is purchase versus refi? Yeah, I'm heavy purchase business. It's probably 75% purchase. Refis are great, but I really love to work with referral partners, real estate agents. So that's my bread and butter. Give me a sense of how you started out marketing yourself. So, you know, you get out of processing and being an L.O.A., which is a great foundation for the business. And then you start originating like, what did you start doing or what were you told to do? Any like lessons there? Yeah, you know, I did a lot of opens and what I would say to somebody starting out and wanting to do this path is that you always say yes to the right people. And sometimes you don't know who the right people are. You have to find out you, you know, you get that a few times or you try to make a connection and maybe it's not perfect after you work on a couple deals together and that's okay. But yeah, saying yes to the right people, doing that open, co-hosting, you know, they want to do some mailers, co-branding those. And it doesn't mean you have to do that stuff forever, but at least give it a shot and see if it works for that relationship and if that's benefiting, you know, you and your referral partner equally and building the relationship from there. So did you already know any realtors? When you first started or how did you like get out there amongst them? Yeah, I didn't know. I knew the realtor who sold me my house and that was pretty much it. So being an L.O.A helped a lot hearing how other, you know, top producers around me were talking to their referral partners. I have some fabulous connections with agents who were new at the same time I was new. And so we grew up together. There's this long foundation of trust. We learned things together from, you know, our respective team leaders that we were working with. So that was really cool to do. And then just expanding from there. What was your approach? And I know that's probably changed. You've probably tried a lot of different things. But, you know, oftentimes people are listening to this. They're like, you know, how do I get in front of realtors? Right? That's the big question. So what are some of the things you did? Open up a dimension, but. Yeah, exactly. So one of the big ones that I've been leaning on, my friend, AJ Crawford. I don't know if she listens to the pub and I'll send this to her. She was a title rep at the time. And she taught me four doors where you have your great referral partner who loves you. You love them. You work well together. And you, you know, you make the ask that way. You know, hey, who else in your brokerage? Who else do you know that you feel like would like to work with me? And I would like to work with them. Would you make an introduction? Okay. That's the huge for me. So that's one door. Yeah, right? Is that four doors in there? Yeah, so you're when you're doing that, ask you're asking them for four doors. So like, who are the four doors around you in your office? So it's slow. Sorry. Yeah, no worries. Vacation. Okay. So I'm going to reference the messaging exchange we had where I asked you, how do you get agents? You said one of those was four doors. I like that. That's, that's like a forgotten art that most people don't even think of. Yeah. And when you have people that you do a good job for, like, they want you to do better. I mean, they're excited for you. If they're hearts in the right place for you, they will do it. They would jump up and down for joy that they could refer you to one of their colleagues. When you were starting out, you mentioned some of the, you grew up together with these realtors, were a lot of the realtors then who you started working with early on, were they, did they tend to be more of the newer agents? Yeah, they were. And I think what was nice and what we, you know, we actually appreciated about that was learning together. I think sometimes agents can be intimidated by some of the questions that they might want to ask a lender. So part of that too, my, you know, my mantra of always saying yes to the right people is having my phone on, my doors open. If they have a question, a sticky situation with another lender, I'm not going to be better that I'm not the lender and the deal. I want them to do better. I want them to close that loan. So I'm always here to give some feedback and help them get through those, you know, odd situations that come up. Hmm. Okay. One of the responses you had to, how do you get agencies? You replied going after listing agents, want to unpack, unpack that a little for me? Yeah. So just, you know, keeping in good touch with them, you know, the regular updates are huge. Every Tuesday updates and then also big milestones like, hey, the appraisals back. It made value. It's as is smoke detectors are noted, you know, water heaters double strapped all those things so they know they don't have to worry about those details. I do thank you cars at the end. I send a nice handwritten note to them, really big on making sure I include their transaction coordinator. If it's a, you know, an agent that has that and works that way because sometimes that transaction coordinator is the one that remembers me and can advocate for me later if I'm trying to make a run at their business. So give me a sense like, I like you, if you've listened to the podcast, you know, I like to take a topic and kind of break it down very specific. So what would, if I was like shadowing you and over your shoulder on a given day or week, you've got, you know, handful of purchased contracts in play, you've got your buyers offer accepted, let's say, walk me through what, yeah, what specifically you do with listing agents. So you calling them texting, you know, I mean, the whole thing. Yeah. Good question. So I'm always calling at the beginning when there's an offer set. So I work in tandem with my buyer's agent to figure out, okay, it was sent at 5 PM on a Sunday. I'm going to give them two hours to look at it. I'm probably not going to call it 7 PM on a Sunday night. I'll text and say, Hey, I'm going to pull up with a phone call tomorrow morning. Hope that's okay with you. Really excited for the potential to work together. Yadda Yadda, I'm really big on using my iPhone with, you know, leveraging that. So I have a nice contact card with my professional headshot, all my contact info. I always send that so that stuck in their phone. Your iPhone hacks are like, I'll always list out when I've worked with an agent. They always go in there as realtor, same with clients. They go in there, the name and then client and all caps on the realtor side. I use the notes app in the iPhone in that contact to note which client I worked with them on and what year that closed month and year of the close. So you kind of look like a superstar genius. If you can refer to, oh, we closed this six months ago together and remember it was a great transaction. So just those little simple tricks. And then do you tell me about the conversation? Let's just say they've accepted the buyer's offer. Is there any kind of laying out? Here's what you can expect, our process, you know, that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So and to me, the important thing too is asking them how they prefer to be contacted and I can, you know, adapt to them. So it's, you know, hey, I like to do a lot of quick text messaging and then my team does an email update follow up. Is that okay with you? Would you prefer a phone call? Would you prefer all text taking it from there, looping in their, their transaction coordinator if that's pertinent or their co-list? Those are, you know, kind of set up front so they know what to expect, but I'm also adapting to their style and serving them best. And do you typically systematically do something like, you know, Tuesday status updates or something or just as they come in or was out of place? Yeah. So I'll do the Tuesday updates. My team does emails for those and my, the email is like my trigger to send a text message. So that way they're getting the information through two channels in case they're out and busy and don't look at email. And then the other thing is adding in the big moments appraisal back, underwriting, you know, clear to close, no conditions. Those will be quick little updates because I use my email inbox like a to do list. So instead of just filing it away, you know, take that opportunity to remind you, okay, who needs to know about this on this transaction? I can text them. It'll take 45 seconds. What is, is there any patterns you see from listing agents in terms of how they prefer to be communicated, text versus calls, et cetera? I think text is huge. Like I think if they, if there's a call, they're like, what's wrong, right? So sometimes if I have to call I say, everything's fine, but this is a conversation we need to have. It's interesting. And you're just doing those, obviously individually, you know, on a given day or like you said, if it's Tuesday or whatever, the email goes out, that triggers you to remind you to update all those contracts in play, right? Yes, exactly. How much time do you spend doing that I'm curious like when it happens? Goodness, I should know this better. I mean, if it's just shooting a text message going over where the file is, it probably takes me two minutes to put together a nice text. Right. But collectively, across all your transactions, let's just say that's what 20, 30 minutes out of the day. Yeah, probably so. That's not about right. Anything surprising, like when you're calling listing agents and you're telling them, you know, you're basically presenting yourself, you're telling them about the process, then you're demonstrating the process. I'm just curious to like, has anybody responded positively to you? Has that led to some relationships for you? Yeah, absolutely. It has. And I think people like the communication. They like to know that even if I reach out and I say, you know, if it's a long clothes and I say, Hey, there's not much happening this week, but we're still in great shape to clothes on time. I'm very confident about that. Just those little touches so that they're not left wondering and anxious is really important. And I have picked up agents from that probably. I would say five or six in the past year, I've picked up that way. It's important to stay in front of them afterwards, obviously. You know, you have to come up with reasons to run into them, which was a little tough during COVID. Yeah. All right. So two things there. I'm going to make a note here, picked up five or six agents will come back to that. But I have had someone else ask me about those like status updates. What about when there's no update, you know, so you're using that as just an opportunity to check in and plant another seed. Yeah. Absolutely. Because I'm, you know, I am huge on communication. And if I don't get for back from somebody, I'm getting anxious. So that's just my baseline and how I treat everybody else. So the fact that there is no update is the update, right? Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And it's okay. So I think sometimes people have this like over too much of a concern for like I'm going to offend. I'm going to piss off the realtor, you know, they're busy, whatever, because everybody has got that example of like, you know, that one or two realtor's who are very vocal, the act like they're annoyed, please stop. You know what I mean? Yeah. And people tend to hang on to that as the norm. But to me, that's not the norm. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And I would say that the couple of agents that I picked up through that have said like your regular communication was really helpful and I really appreciated it. So those listening, if your realtor is getting upset that you're communicating with them on a regular basis, maybe that's a red flag. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that's not the person for you to pursue and say yes to all the time, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. No need to be chasing that relationship. Have you ever though? I'm curious. Have you ever like done the, let's go, let's go back to the situation of trying to get your buyers off or accepted and you're, do you call listing agents to pitch the buyer in that scenario? Yeah. Absolutely. We do a lot of powwow with my referral partner about what's important to the listing agent, right? What are they caring about? What do they want to hear to try to tailor it? Sometimes we have no information, but when the co-op is pretty communicative about what the seller wants to see, what's important to the listing agent, I obviously highly like that. And are you typically calling those agents, are you doing anything like a video text or anything like that? Yeah, video text is something I would love to get into. I think I heard somebody on your pod recently mentioned that and it seems like a great idea. It might have been for birthdays or something, but definitely want to get into that. Usually I'm doing a call and then a text message with my contact card to follow up. Have you found any instances where you're upfront, I'll keep call it pitching the buyer, but let's face it because they've got multiple offers that can ultimately choose one. Has that ever helped get your buyer offer accepted? Yeah, I would think so. Absolutely. I mean, it's... Yeah, exactly. And then it's also a reputation thing, right? I mean, the longer you'll be in the business, the better known your name is. But for me, it's about, you know, not making promises you can't keep because people will never forget that and it hangs around you forever. So... Very true, very true. All right, you said you've gotten over the past year by doing these status updates, you've acquired five or six of those listing agents as partners. But wait a minute, Beth, aren't they just listing agents? Right? Yeah, great questions. So, you know, a lot of them are, if they're listing agents, then they have those bigger teams, right? They have buyers agents. So maybe it's not one-on-one to that listing agent specifically, but it is a connection, whether you're working with their group, their team. So I guess that's kind of taking that four-door concept and expanding on it without even having to ask. So... Can you articulate in any regard, like, how that migrates from you're doing status updates? And I don't know if, like, I've interviewed some LOs who... They'll say at the beginning of the transaction of like, hey, you know, we're going to blow your socks off. We're going to do that under promise and over deliver. And if we, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, hit all the milestones and metrics and, you know, exceed your expectations, you know, can I get 15 minutes with you? They kind of like pre-sell that. I'm curious, like, how do you take it from you're doing status updates to post-close? How do I have a conversation with you? Yeah, great question. So, you know, keeping those contexts in my phone, my new assistant is, you know, hugely helpful with reminding me of these things. So what I'll do is I'll send her an email and she's on the traffic so she can see, but saying, hey, this was a really great transaction, please put it on my calendar for three weeks out to find a reason to call this agent, send them a note, what have you. She's also helping me start to do pop-bys. So those are nice for database that I haven't done much with ever and also adding some realtor contacts. Are the pop-bys mostly for realtors? It's about 50-50, yeah, database and realtors. Got it. I don't know why I'm playing a little bit of devil's advocate here, but what about like, hey, realtors aren't in their office, like, how do you find those pop-bys perform? Yeah, good question. So I actually text them and give them a heads up that it's coming and I say, hey, where's the best place that I can send this? And then I always put that address in my phone. I mean, it goes in your CRM as well, but in my iPhone, just because, you know, who knows, you want to have all your data and have it be yours and belong to you. So usually I'm getting the home addresses and then I have either my L.O.A. or a marketing helper, drop those off. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. Like that. And is everybody that you close a transaction with, realtors? Are they on your, you know, pop-by list, so to speak? The ones that I liked are, you know, if I, if I didn't vibe with them, and that's okay, and they're not on my list. And then I also asked my referral partners for feedback, like, hey, how is this person to work with, where they polite to you, where they, you know, collaborative, do they seem like they would be a good contact, is it something I should try? And I get some different, you know, sometimes you're surprised. Do they work from, you know, great to you, but they're pretty difficult with your agent. So. All right. Interesting. Okay. All right. So right now, your primary source of business is, realtors. Realters. Okay. How many realtors do you work with roughly on average? Yeah. I would say 25, you know, there's stuff, there's definitely like a top tier where I get more business from, and then there's, you know, kind of the fringe where I don't care from as much. Hmm. Okay. So 25 total, and there's the top tier. Do you do anything different for the top tier? You know, I'm just trying to stay in touch with them a lot more. So and again, it's still the basics of saying, yes, like I'm doing a big open this weekend. I'm going to be there for a couple hours, and it's actually a few of my agents in a condo building. So one agent that introduced me to a few others that she works with. So I'll get to knock that out. But yeah, to me, it's remembering that as a buyer's agent, their job right now is really hard. They're being run ragged all over the city. They're living in their cars. And so let's not forget that every time we work on a file, we're sitting at our desk in our comfortable office, and that represents hours of their time trying to get the buyer to that point. So when you're doing a big, big open, what do you mean, explain? So big open house, it's in like our condo building in downtown Portland. And so it's going to be like a multi unit open. So it'll be some agents that I already work with there, but then also a good opportunity to maybe say hi to a few that I haven't met yet. You're sponsoring it? Yes. Okay. And anybody else you're teaming up with on that, like Title S grow? Yeah, just me. You. Okay. So I imagine there's some type of an investment in there. You're catering, doing food, drinks, what is this? Yeah, we're doing just like a little gift basket giveaway. So something kind of simple. And then, you know, I'll just be bringing my marketing materials. My company has a really great app. So then you also have the opportunity to, you know, pre-qual people on the spot and, you know, get them kind of in your web if they so choose. Are you serving any order of, is there anything? Not that I'm responsible for. I know there will be. I think the Realtors handling that part. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see. Yeah. Got to love it. Love it. Let me see here. Let's go back to our notes. Okay. So we talked about the four doors. Ask agents who like me and introduce you to other agents. They think would be a good fit. That's awesome. Kind of like the old, hey, let's go to lunch and bring a colleague. Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Going after listening agents, we talked about that. Another thing you said, I love it is, and you put this in all caps. I try to be the one who always picks up the phone. Yeah. That's a strategy, actually, isn't it? It is. Yeah. You can ask my husband too. I mean, I'm able to do that. I don't have any kids other than two little doggies. So that's just something we've decided together is important to grow my business right now and his really understanding of that. But I think it actually makes my job easier. Because when people can't get a hold of you, they get frustrated. They probably won't tell you they're frustrated, but they do. And then you're trying to schedule all these little 15-minute phone calls during the week. It's so much easier to just say, hey, try me any time. I'll always pick up. If I miss you, I'll text you and we'll arrange a better time to check in. But, and that's for clients and for referral partners, being the one that always picks up. Is there a cutoff point for you? There is. I could put my phone in the other room to let it charge at about nine every night. Not even. Got it. And you also go on to say that if they don't give you, once people trust you, they respect your family time and they give you some slack. If they don't give you some slack, you stop working with them. Have you had to do that? Yeah, I have. It's been a lot a while. But it's more like that slow progression where you're just learning about yourself and your business. You're learning about what's important to you and sometimes the light bulb goes off of like, hey, this is not really a connection. I'm just not going to put as much energy into this relationship as I have before. And you haven't fired anybody yet? Not outright. You just slowly like, yeah, separate yourself. Slow fade as the kids say, right? There you go. There you go, for sure. OK, so let me bounce over to social media. I'm on your Instagram, which I think is how you and I originally connected. Your license didn't look like four states? Yes, Oregon, Washington, California, Arizona. Are you taking advantage of the migration, right? Are there people coming into Oregon, et cetera? Yeah, there sure are lots of California coming in. So it's great. But then there's people moving other places as well. I have a lot of people moving from Oregon to Washington lately. And then Arizona market seems to be big for those people with the second homes. What would you say? And again, we're not prepped for this. But I'm curious if you can articulate it all, right? Like of your units or just percentage of volume loans closed, like what's out of your state where you reside versus those other three states? Yeah, I would say it's probably 70% Oregon, 20% Washington, and the rest would be split among the other two. Because here in the Portland Metro Vancouver, Washington is right over the border. So you have a lot of Vancouver, Canvas, Wash, Google, those markets. But still, I mean, if we're talking 20%, let's see, that could be 15 plus 20 units. Yeah, absolutely. And I have good agents up there too. And then I, for whatever reason, I get some stuff from Bend and Salem. So still Oregon, but far outside my market. And I have referral partners there as well. How are you able to service, stay top of mind, keep offense built around those referral partners who aren't like in your backyard? Yeah, that's a toughy. And to be honest, I haven't figured it out yet. I think it definitely takes a lot more touches to be in front of them. So mailing little handwritten notes when you think of them, just doing a text to check in. Going back to remembering how draining the market is right now for buyers agents. Just say, like, text them when you don't need a thing. Just, hey, I was thinking about you. I hope you're doing well. Have a great day. Exactly. As a matter of fact, we were just talking about that earlier on another call. It's just checking in with no intention other than, hey, we're thinking of you. Hope you're doing it. OK. Yeah. Like, no ask, no nothing. Exactly. That seems like the opposite of what we quote should be doing, right? Always always be selling, always be closing, whatever. But that really goes so much further, long way. Yeah, I think that comes back to you later. I mean, it takes a while for it to come back to you. But kind of the same thing, if you have a loan program, and maybe it's not the exact right fit, and you have a friend at another institution that it's a better fit, I'm going to tell you that, right? I'm going to be straight up with you. And people are usually pretty blown away when you do that for them, and you're that honest. Right. OK, let's talk about your social, et cetera, a digital, all that jazz. Instagram, got over 1,000 followers there. Did you only start working that when you became an originator? Yes, absolutely. And not even my first year concentrating on being an originator, it came a little later. I'm pretty reticent to share a lot of the personal life. And I know that I should improve, because that's really what people want to see. So I struggle with that. All right, give me an example of something that would be, quote, personal life in your book. Yeah, just simple things like kind of popping on stories on the weekend when you're doing yard work or something like that, little tips around the home. For me, it's all about my dogs. So my dogs are on there, but definitely could share more dog picks if people were interested. You certainly could, because you've got cute dogs. And I'll make sure we put links to all your stuff in our show notes here. But yeah, I mean, I don't have to tell you there's people are dog lovers out there in a crazy way. So there's so many ways for you to leverage that for sure. But I do think it's worthy to have a conversation about the struggle, if you will, to share that air quotes personal stuff. Because I know it's one I struggle with, for sure. And I'm trying to find what's the right answer. Because look, until we're blue in the face, we could say, well, that's what people want to see. You know, it's like, okay, I get it. But knowing it and then actually following through or more importantly, even remembering to do it or we think it's boring, right? For me, I know that's the hard part. I'll give you an example of this. This is going to relate to what you just said. I was, well, what was it? My birthday gift was birthday anniversary, I can't remember. Wife buys me a battery-operated leaf blower, right? And I'm thinking, perfect social media thing to share. Yeah. Right? Because I'm out in the backyard. I'm like, you know what, I'm going to share this. I'm going to share this up. I'm going to do the blowing the leaves thing. I'm going to meet Drinking at Topo Chico, which I've recently fallen in love with. And I'm just like going to show him be blown out. You know what I mean? Greatest gift ever kind of thing. So that's an example of like, you know, a year ago, I wouldn't even thought of that or I would have thought I was stupid, who cares. But that's the weird kind of space in the middle where we have to step into that. And we think it's stupid or meaningless, but people love the glimpse into our lives, right? Yeah, they really do. And I think it, you know, it humanizes us, especially when, you know, sometimes people approach the mortgage space as us being a commodity. Yeah. I think it's important to remember that, you know, we are people, we're human beings. We want the best for them. We're not just like a robot, punching numbers all day. Yeah. And you, I mean, you're sharing, like I'm seeing a picture here. It's a behind-the-scenes view of you when you're doing a video, you're videotaping. That already makes me sound old, videotaping. What the hell is videotaping? You all get what I mean. But this is a pretty cool behind-the-scenes frame shot of you right in the camera. That was cool. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'll have to make a note to do in today before we wrap, you know, do my little setup here. That's right. Where's my phone? I got two phones. One phone too many. Oh. Do it for the Graham. Exactly. See, thank you. See, that's the problem. I don't even remember to do that. So we're going to do that right now. You can do it too. Okay. I'm going to do it too. We'll do it. Get your phone out. Do it. We can do it. Both of us will have the phone up at the exact same time. Yeah. Love it. Okay. All right. I already got you actually. So better with your face, not blocking. Love it. All right. Sweet. Yeah. So now we have social media content. Yeah. And then let's see. Read your human at the IRS. That's funny. You're posting one of your awards. The dogs again. Where is this? I'm 10. What? Mother puppies. Yeah. Yeah. That was my old guy. He had a little banner for his birthday saying I'm 10 mother puppies. So. Oh, see, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. My 10 year old shelter dog. He's going to live forever. Thank you very much. I had two of them. One of them. She passed on. She was 16. So sad. Pookie. Oh. Anyway. So you're featuring local stuff. This actually got caught in my eye. The tasty tavern. Mm hmm. I like that. Is that a tavern? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, that's, I mean, it's like a great example of stuff where it's like now more than ever, these local businesses need our love, right? We need to make connections with them. So. Yes. Yeah. Definitely need to be practiced in what I've reached. I mean, I swiped this form and there for posting from somebody which was. A simple method to just get started three times a week. One is personal. One is business, right? Real estate. Mortgage related. Whatever. Housing, et cetera. And then one is shouting out a local business. Yeah. And tagging them. And so you're in an area up there which has got tons of cool businesses. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. We have so much good food. Yeah. Like amazing food here in Portland. And, you know, cool local shops and yeah, just really cool spaces. And lots of entrepreneurial spirit. All right. So here's the question. I got to ask. Have you been able to get any business yet from social media? Yeah. I have actually. And I have some agents that are really leaning into it hard. And so. Going back to my always saying yes. You know, I've done some Instagram lives with them. You know, little videos that they're sniffing and cutting up or. You know, posting and tick tock and all that stuff. So. I am not the main driver of it. But I do know it comes in through some great referral partner relationships. And I support those people in that. What's your primary social platform that you hang out on most often? You know, it's probably Instagram and it's actually Facebook too. There's some tricky things with Facebook business page. But I do like that. I guess that's my maybe me showing my my age of my generation being like the Facebook. Yeah. That's my bread and butter. And you are well, I can see that you're active on your business page on Facebook. Let me go to your personal here for a second. Are you you're more active obviously on your personal Facebook page? You know, I'm actually I'm pretty active on the business side. Personal. It's one of those things where it's like it just. The time gets away for me, man. You know, I feel like I've been so busy. I see. So actually you have more more activity on your business page. Yeah, absolutely. Are you posting or do you have somebody post for you? Yeah, I do the posting. I came from a marketing background. So I do, you know, I have kind of like a nice cadre of websites that I'm checking for things that are interesting, I think. So, you know, interesting local events and then things like, you know, CNBC make it like, you know, fun little money type tips. It's not always exactly mortgage related. And then some travel stuff to that people people love travel stuff. Maybe it's the COVID thing, but those always perform really well. And so where do you stand with using video in your business? Yeah, so that's something I'm going to be working on here, especially with having my assistant on board. She's a very good marketing brain as well. So, and I think it, you know, honestly, it's like having that person there who is going to tell you, you need to do X, Y and Z. And you just say yes. Break down your team then for a moment in terms of who you have. You have an assistant. She's a marketing assistant. Yeah, so she actually is an assistant. And then ultimately it will be contract to close social be both. And then we have a processor as well. It's all pretty new, right? I mean, I've been here for two months. So getting the flow down is kind of first and foremost right now. But she's, you know, very well rounded experience. So the marketing person that's shared. Yes, with one other L.O. Is that something the company provides for you? Are you paying anything on a pocket for that? Yeah, so that's provided. And then for the contract to close part, there's also, you know, a profile that's happening because they're doing contract to close management as well. So then briefly walk me through your process of when you take in a loan. By the way, how do you take loans? Are you doing traditional 1003? Are you doing apps? Website? What do you do? Yeah, so we have a very handy app that I've been leaning on. And I really love a ton of my clients love it and use it. There's a desktop version. So that's available as well. And then, you know, I'm not afraid to take a paper 1003. I used to do that all the time back in the day. So for the clients that are not techy and or don't have, you know, a kid or grand kid to help them. Usually it's that old generation that likes the paper. Okay. But by and large, you're saying, hey, you know, next step is to complete an application. I don't know if you're asking them what do they prefer. And then the bulk of them are preferring the web based. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You have to download the app or. Yeah, so you send them a link. They download it very handy. It's customized to me. And then there's also the button that's in my email signature line. So if it's easier for them to do on a tablet or desktop, they have that option as well. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. And you find your conversion rate on sending people to an app is nothing to be concerned about not losing people. Yeah, no, it's pretty good. And then the other thing that's nice is that you have an opportunity to go in there and see who started an app and not finished. And I do get email alerts about that too. So at that point, I can reach out and say, hey, was there something you had difficulty on? Can I help you? You know, what can we do to get this finished? Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I also noticed you've got a pretty strong presence on Zillow. You've got 51 reviews currently there at this time. So you're like your post-close review process. How do you get reviews? Yeah, great question. So I, as I mentioned, I'm a big texture and I keep templates in my notes app of my phone. So I have my go to scripts in there. It's a copy, paste, customized to the client. It has the links. So mainly I'm doing a text and I get really good traction with that. And sometimes, you know, you have to follow up with another nudge a couple of weeks later. But typically doing that at close or after close. Yeah, exactly. So I'll do, you know, my, my funded FYI, you know, exciting funded phone call. I am wanting to get back to doing signings. Once that's a thing I got to go to one a couple of weeks ago that my first one post-climate that was great. But yeah, doing the follow up and just saying, hey, you know, I spend a ton of time. As you know, with my clients, you know, holding their hand the whole way through. So it's a huge help so that people look me up online and see what, you know, how your experience was with me and my team. And are you giving them just a Zillow or giving them something else as well to choose from? Yeah, I give Zillow and my Facebook as well. And then, you know, Yelp and Google building out those presences. That's on the docket. Just haven't gotten a chance to said that I'd be out at my new company. Yeah, got it. And for you, you're doing all that. It's not like a third party is sending those out on your behalf, like you just said. Correct. Yeah. Now we do have experience dot com. So that's another source, which has been nice because that's automated for you. But you're doing double duty on that. You're sending in the text as well. Yeah, absolutely. Hmm. Interesting. Well, I'm sure that's helpful for you in terms of like the credibility factor when people look at reviews. Not to get into. Well, I'm curious. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about Zillow and sending people there. Yeah. Yeah. Great question. And I actually, you know, going back to my saying, yes, for the right people I had a referral partner asked me to, you know, spend some money on Zillow with her. And what I said was if it's working for you, then I'm willing to try it because, you know, I like working with you. I want to support you. We'll give it a try. We'll see how it goes. But by and large, I don't like the thought of supporting them monetarily. So again, I'm not going to say yes to anybody for that. It has to be the right fit somebody that I like to work with anyway. And so you did make choose to say yes to that particular offer. Yeah, I've said that I would details aren't finalized yet. So, you know, I did say yes. Yeah, you know, falls in her court now. Have you had anybody reach out to you because of your online reviews from Zillow or anywhere else? You know, I don't actually think so. I think more so it's if they are hearing my name from a referral partner and or a past client. You're going to Google me, right? And so I have had them say, well, your reviews were the reason that we called you first. So, and usually I can, you know, get people feeling pretty comfortable with me after the initial phone call. Right. Absolutely. Okay. So what is your, what is your, how do you do time block? Let me put it that way. Great question. So I do my calendar rules my life, but things get moved around all day every day. So if I have an email of, you know, something marketing related that needs to be dealt with, I'll put it on my calendar for next week on Monday. It probably will get kicked from Monday to Wednesday. But that is my, my rolling to do list that's constantly shifting. Okay. Um, where are you looking at investing in your business next either with time or money or both? Yeah, good question. So, um, definitely pop eyes. Those have been huge with my assistant helping me with those. Um, I, my clients love me and I love them. I have a great database, but I have not, you know, done a lot with that, frankly. So I would say, you know, loving on my database quite a bit more, um, is what I need to add in my business. And you're using a CRM? Yes. Yeah. We have a CRM called AM. What's it called? Yeah. AMP. Yeah. It's proprietary proprietary. Okay. All right. Well, one of the things that jumped out for me about when I was looking at your Instagram feed, um, what I noticed was you were posting these pictures of homes. Um, let me scroll to find one. I've got one here on my phone. And that's, I've made a comment to you about, like, I love the pics of the home. It really stood out to me because I've never seen a loan officer take pictures of homes. And, uh, and, and, and some of these you wrote across, you, you said, was this one, say, funded, congrats, you know, congrats to the people. They're, you know, the buyers, actually. And I noticed this and I start scrolling. I'm like, wait a minute. There's another one. First of all, these homes look really cool because they're up in, you know, like a swigo, mostly Oregon. Beautiful backdrops and all this kind of stuff. Um, so that caught my eye architecturally. They're very appealing. But then I'm really done to me. I'm like, wait a minute. What is, what hit me was, uh, and I think I said this to you was, where's the people? Right? And then you're, you're, you're comment to that was the whole, obviously, the COVID restrictions. I think what I said, I'm looking at it right here. I love the pics. No clients willing to pose or, or COVID restrictions. But, but obviously for you, this is a factor of not always being able to get the people. What? So what I was curious about is, are you driving by these homes and snap a photo or somebody else doing it for you? Yeah. So, um, it's kind of a mix 50, 50, you know, like catch is catch can. And I do like to show, you know, what I am doing. So that's great. But then also it's a hack for me because I have my entire year lineup right there. So, you know, and then it's, I don't always remember exactly who was who, but I have a general sense. And sometimes I'll put back through there and I'll say, okay, what did I close two months ago? I should probably just text those clients and say, hey, how are you doing any mortgage questions I can help with? Um, they're getting a post post campaign anyway from CRM. But of course the, the one on one personal touches are always going to mean more. So it's kind of a visual aid to myself. It would be interesting also to maybe already doing this, but to tag the realtor, you know, both realtors. Yeah, absolutely. And that because then that gets them a little social love, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I thought it was a unique way to still, you know, um, create a post in your, in your social feed obviously. It's an attractive visual. That's why people are on Instagram. Um, you've got, you know, you can put the hashtags in there again. I just think it's a good play for staying, staying top of the feed, so to speak. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, and the funny thing about social that I always hear people say is when you have more time, you're posting more and you run into your database or your sphere and people are like, oh, wow, you're so busy. You're doing so much business and you're like, no, actually, I have time. So I'm posting on social. It's kind of a funny like Instagram versus reality moment. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. For sure. Um, okay, do you have any other sources of, you know, besides past client database, are you going after any additional, you know, sources besides realtors could be attorney, CPAs, whatever builders? Yeah, good question. You know, I haven't built that out yet because I, to me, it's, I'm very linear like one step at a time. So what I'm really focused on right now is it's my job to love on my realtors who love me and I love them back, you know, work on those four doors with making more connections with them. Um, and then having my L.O.A. help with the database building. And once we get that system under control, I'm going to be going after those alternative sources. Hmm. All right. I'm curious. Have you done or considered doing like, you know, educational events for realtors or home buyers or anything like that? Yeah, absolutely. I have actually a like online home buyers class that is in the works with one of my referral partners. Um, one of the ones who's great with her online presence and TikTok. So, um, we're going to meet up in a couple weeks and work on that and really leverage her online savvy for that. Is that going to be live on demand or what? Yeah, it's going to be live like a, you know, a live zoom and then we're going to have somebody who's, you know, messaging participants during probably my L.O.A. to set up appointments. So, um, you know, set up that little consultation phone call right then and there and just put it on the books. So, you're going to do a first time home buyer class over zoom, you're going to promote it, social media, whatever. Get a bunch of people to make a reservation, hopefully walk through it and then grab some appointments through that. Yeah. Yeah. That's the idea. Yeah. Definitely can work. I've heard a number of people have been talking about that lately and doing it. Yeah. And, you know, I love first time home buyers anyway. You know, I have, I have my story and my connection as to why I do this is, you know, I was in your shoes once and this is why I'm here. And then I also find like, yes, they take up a lot of time. They need a lot of hand folding, but you're building such loyalty with them when you do that. And then you're there for the move up purchase for their friends. What have you? And do you incorporate your story, you know, into that initial conversation like as a sales practice or only when it's appropriate? Yeah. I usually do, especially if it's a first timer because I want them to know that I have their best interest in heart. That's very important to me. And I think it does build trust. So I incorporate that nut. Every time I would say, you know, 65% of the time it's being brought up. What do you find that the biggest hurdle, fear, concern, you know, issue or issues with first time home buyers is the news is the media accurate of their confused about the process about the paperwork. They're a little bit unnerved by it. Is that all accurate? Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100% and I think it intimidates people from even having a conversation, which bugs me. I mean, that's too bad that people aren't even asking their sphere for a recommendation because they're afraid of what I'm going to tell them. And one thing I always say to people when they have credit issues or, you know, need to build up down payment or I need more income history, whatever it is, my commitment is that I'm going to get them a roadmap. So I'm not saying no, I'm saying not yet, but here's what we can do, you know, your three month plan, six month plan, whatever it is. And that's another thing that goes on the calendar to check in with them. You know, hey, how are you doing? How's your credits for look on your end? Have you paid down this debt? All of that. And do you give them any, you know, credit repair or whatever restoration referrals for that? Or how do you handle that? Yeah, good question. So not a formal service. So I'll do, you know, or what if simulators and things like that. And then I'm very big on kind of general advice, just, you know, again, letting them know I'm a real person, you know, saying, hey, this is what works for me. I've heard good things about XY and Z, you know, maybe like it's a personal loan through one of those online lenders to help consolidate some credit card debt, things like that. Okay, interesting. All right. What are you hoping to close this year out 2021 if you thought about that numbers wise? Yeah, oh, yeah, absolutely. So for the rest of the year, I want to be at, I have it right over here, 4 million a month or 10 units. So yeah, exactly. That's the goal. That's, that's pretty darn good considering you've been originating. What was it? Five, let's call it five years. Five years. Wow. Nice. Very cool. Love it. Yeah. Okay, listen, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you making time, especially like kind of off the cuff and like, you know, completely unscripted. Yeah, no, super fun. I loved it. And I would love to come back any other time. For sure. If anybody wants to follow you online, social media, whatever, go ahead and give out whatever you want for your Instagram, your social media handles it all that. For sure. So Instagram is mortgages by that. And then if they search that on Facebook, too, they'll find you that way. All right, mortgages by Beth. And we hope to see more awesome social content and video from you coming soon. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Hey, listen, once again, appreciate it. And as well, listeners, thanks for tuning in. Hope you enjoyed this episode. You know what to do. Leave us a review and we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Hey, guys, what's up? Real quick. You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before. 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