How to Attract, Connect and Convert Real Estate Agents

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, Listerns, what's up, Jeff Zimper, your humble host of the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. So thrilled that you tuned in here. Hey, quick ask of you. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while and you haven't yet left us a review, do you mind taking about 60 seconds right now on your mobile phone if this is where you're listening to it or where you go to mobile phone podcasts and you pull up our show and you can find the section where you can go tap to leave a review. That'd be awesome if you could do that. It helps us grow, reach more people and send love to the gods, the podcast gods, so that we stay in the top rankings. I appreciate that if you guys wouldn't mind and or share this podcast. You can share the show and or episodes right from your podcast, listening app and you can share just forward it off. So if you want to share this with somebody that you feel it would be relevant to listen to or any one of the individual episodes, feel free to do that as well and I would definitely appreciate you sharing the love. Okay, so before we get into this week's very special guest, one of you, of course, another update from the field of our Mortgage Marketing Pro members where we lead with education, teaching classes to real estate agents. So we don't chase. We attract and we only work with agents who seek us out, are producing agents and we're getting referrals on demand. Most recent success stories standing here right in front of me came in one day ago, Carrie what's up? Carrie longtime member just taught a brand new chat GPT class where she at the end of that class got three appointments immediately following the class with agents to talk about working together, going deeper, helping those agents grow their business. And that's just one of the examples you hear from me every single week. Look, if you want to see more examples of how loan officers are succeeding and attracting instead of chasing real estate agents, you can just go to Mortgage Marketing.pro or making lots of enhancements over there. The platform has grown. I've been doing this now for well over five years for loan officers with loan officers across the country. I've been doing it myself as an originator since I started in 2003. That's how I built my business to over 120 transactions a year exclusively from the Bristol State agents. Those were just the agent transactions, 78% of those were purchase deals. And then I still do this today in my local market through a title company that I work with. They bring me into host and teach agent classes every single day or not day, every single week. And I also meet with agents doing digital audits, reviews of their Google business profile, their social media profiles, their online presence. And that's exactly what we teach our members to do inside the Mortgage Marketing.pro community is how to attract, not chase, how to add value, how to have conversations that are meaningful, unique and different that create a tremendous advantage for the real estate agents. By the way, with no selling, right, with no need to say, hey, do you want to partner together? They're drawn to attract to want to work with you because you're adding more value. You're creating a unique differentiator for yourself, and it simply works, right? So you want to learn more, you go to Mortgage Marketing.pro to check that out. Look at some of the success stories over there. Watch the videos. I got a video over there from my guy Kevin who added $20 million to his production last year by being a part of our community. Love to have you. Is it for everybody? No. Is it cheap? No. It's an investment. It's an investment of your time, your commitment, your attention, and your follow-through. And we're more about who you become by joining our community than what you get. What you get will be, right, an increase in your income, like Glenda who added $90,000 to her income last year exclusively from our platform. So that's great. Everyone likes to make more money. But what's even greater than that is who you become in the process, and that's largely what we work on in the Mortgage Marketing.pro membership. So go check it out. So this week by special guest happens to be very relevant to what I just shared with you. And we have a really great conversation with Megan Galbraith, who's the Chief Marketing Officer for Foundation Mortgage in Knoxville, Tennessee. They're actually in about half a dozen states right now. And this is a clinic. You want to take out your notepad. You want to set aside some time to take some notes to listen to how Megan has helped to grow foundation leading with education. Continuing with social media engagement, teaching classes, pouring into realtors, creating a platform, a culture of foundation mortgage in their local markets. That is a differentiator that attracts agents to want to work with them with little to no selling. You're going to hear how she's done this. And there are some serious nuggets that I took away from this conversation that I know you will as well. And I think it's a perfect fit. One of the reasons, if you want to be totally transparent, that I wanted to bring Megan to the podcast is because this is what we do in our mortgage marketing program membership. We lead with education in classes, right? And Megan is an example of how to execute that at a high level. She's proven it to be successful. And I think if anything, right, when you hear Megan, you can go do this on your own. Go ahead, right, go out there, apply what Megan's doing, right, do the research, find out how to, you know, teach classes, put the PowerPoints together, all that kind of jazz. Or if you want it done for you, right, selfish plug here, go to mortgage marketing.pro because that's exactly what we do. So Megan, I appreciate so much and I'm just excited to bring our conversation to you here today. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Megan, welcome to the show. Hi, welcome. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. So it's funny how these conversations come about is somehow, you know, this is social media today, right? You never know how somebody gets on your feet or in your world, but you did somehow and then I start following you and I start looking at your content and I'm like, wow, this content's really good. I'm like, what does she do? Is she a, is she training real estate agents, loan officers? So why don't you tell listeners who are you? What do you do? Yeah. So my name is Megan Galbraith and I'm actually the chief marketing officer here at foundation mortgage company, my husband and I own foundation mortgage company and he has been in the business for 20 years. And I've kind of been in the business for probably about five years, seriously. And about a year and a half ago is when I really, really went full force into social media marketing. You know, when the market started changing, you know, my husband was like, I don't know what's going to happen here. We really need to start switching things up. So he really brought me on board and was like, Hey, I need you and we need to do something that's different. So we got on social media, we start pushing it hard and it has really just put our brand out there. We've had realtors come to us, we've had loan officers and it was just all through social media marketing. Right. Very smart, very smart, nice to be aware of, yeah, kind of where I talk about work and consumer attention. I used to say work and consumer attention is going, but this is where consumer attention is now. Yes. 100%. And it's only growing in terms of going, but all right. So your headquartered in Tennessee, is that right? That is right. We are based on Knoxville, Tennessee, but we are licensed in other states around the southeast and we're about to open a branch in Nashville, Tennessee. So again, social media has actually helped with that, you know, kind of with our growth and our brand awareness. So it's been a crazy ride, but man, it has been fun. We enjoy it. I just remembered perhaps the connection and I'm looking at his picture right now on your company's Instagram post, my boy Brian, Brian McKee, right? Yes. Yes. So Brian recently just joined us probably about like two or three weeks ago and, you know, he's really into social media, huge Facebooker, started getting Instagram probably about a year ago and he sees the value in as a loan officer and man, he kills it when it comes to attracting realtors. People know him. They want to work with them and they like no one trusts him. So he's an incredible asset to foundation mortgage company. Well, little plug there as you know, like Brian and I worked together for a couple of years prior to him coming to your company and I remember working with him on his whole strategy with him leveraging what he was passionate about, which is cooking and all that stuff. Yes. You would come up and, you know, I'm just proud of what he's done and accomplished and I've seen him evolve also as a person, you know, and who he's, so Brian, appreciate you man. If you're listening. He's great. He's got that mortgage foodie thing going on and people love and eat up and really he's really good at cooking though, like in real life. So oh, dude. Yeah. I mean, it draws people in like just the dishes, the pictures he posts, but the way he kind of, you know, mixes it with mortgages is just perfect. Yeah. Well, we'll try and put a link to in the show notes to Brian's page so people can check it out. Yes. Go check him out. Make sure to follow him in front of my Facebook. Absolutely. But, you know, first of all, I mean, just your video content, right, it's, it's, and I do a lot of like you, I do a lot of training of real estate agents on the mortgage professionals and companies, etc. Here in my market in Vegas. And one of the biggest challenges I see all the time is like, they don't, there's no personality. There's like, there's the stock photos, right, there's the listings, but I'm like, where's the agent? And that's one of the things that first jumped out about you, right, to me was like, you're definitely like, would it be safe to say you're kind of the face of foundation mortgage? Yes. That would be correct. Yeah. You know, it was very nerve wracking to really push myself to be the face. We actually hired like a local influencer, okay? So we tried that direction and thought, maybe we could use a local influencer that has a huge following already that influences people and, you know, it's really get a social company marketing to come in the company. And we tried it. We did it for a couple of months and it was just not the right fit. And we ended up finding out like, no better person can market your company or your business than yourself. And people kept telling us that and people kept kind of pushing me specifically like, you should be out there. You should be the face. Like you are the owner, you are in the marketing, you're the chief marketing officer. Like you should be the person in front of the camera. And finally, I was like, all right, I'm just going to do it. So I just had to push myself. But, you know, it took some time. That's what people need to realize. Like, you know, my videos now, yeah, people look at and think, oh, wow, you're so great at what I started. Not so great. You know, it was very nerve wracking for me to be in front of the camera and learn how to talk. It was very nerve wracking. But as I got more and more in front of the camera and then started teaching social media classes to realtors, I really got into swing of things. I was like, oh, I like this. I got it. And I saw what it was doing for the company and it was providing for my loan officers by attracting realtors and, you know, potential like realtor partners. I really took off as soon as I really started seeing it pick up speed. So yeah, it was a big jump, but it's really done a lot for our company and everyone kind of basically knows me, but they also know our company and our loan officers because I talk about them too and kind of direct people from my page to our mortgage page. Yeah. So what I wanted to do on this call or conversation is kind of walk us through that process you'd have because you and I spoke before and we're kind of kind of in spirits in that. I'm a huge believer in leading with education as you do to attract instead of chase real estate agents. And it's funny because a lot of people like, you know, they hear, oh, classes, yeah, no kidding. Yeah. Big, right? And I mean, I'm seeing what I love about you is like I'm seeing evidence of what I've been preaching for years is like, you know, forget, have you guys, let me ask it this way. Have you guys tried the other methods, the co-tauling, the going to open houses and broker previews and all you've done that? Yes. We've done that. Yeah. And it's like the basics of a loan officer, you would say, just like realtors have their basics of door knocking co-tauling. You know, we still promote that and encourage it, but you know, the market changed. That's the biggest thing. The market changed. What do you mean? The market changed. Yeah. You have to change as a business owner like you have to be prepared to change because the market changes. So you need to be changing your business because something that maybe worked a year or two ago might not work right now. And so one of the biggest things that we did that was different was to provide value for realtor partners and to help them build their business and show them how we can build their business and show them how to get leads off of social media marketing and provide social media marketing classes and, you know, always putting out content that's valuable for them that they want to share themselves to their clients and on their page that's educational. But it's also fun, exciting, different stands out and really showing the personality of foundation mortgage company because we have some great people here and I'm really big about the loan officers picking their own brand, their own niche and really staying true to who they are when they're in front of the camera. So that has made a huge difference is like you said, most of them, it's very boring. Sure. You know, very mortgage and water down corporate and we have seared a weight from that completely as much as we can. So. While we're here, let me ask you the question now then. So what do you think the impact has been in your business shifting from the more traditional stuff you mentioned to now leading with education, this brand becoming known as, oh my God, foundation mortgage, right, Megan, she's out there, she's all this content, we see her everywhere. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Even some people were like, I thought you were annoying, but I think I was just like annoyed that you were doing it so good, but at first I did have some loan officers that came over and they were like, man, you were always on my feet and my stories, but like, I really liked it. It's like I hated it, but I actually really, really enjoyed it and I loved watching your stuff. But it has made a huge impact on our business, you know, during the down market, it has helped us grow. We had brought on, I mean, just myself, I brought on, I don't know how many agents has passed here just myself to the company to then, you know, give to loan officers, depending on their personalities, of course, and I call myself like, consider myself like a matchmaker because I know my loan officers and I really get to know the realtors. So then I know, oh, you would be a good fit for Brian or Lori or Will and, you know, I'm not perfect. And sometimes, you know, it doesn't work out, but most of the time it does just because I know my people, I'm in the office every day. I know them personally, their family, their life. And so I'm able to kind of make that transition. But loan officers have definitely questioned me whenever I'm like, hey, if you do this and do this on social media, and do these classes and kind of let me help you, we can capture some of these realtor partners that you may have not been able to capture yourself. But it works out pretty nicely. I was nervous kind of doing this myself and figuring out, is this really going to work? But it eventually did. And the first one I got, the first realtor that I captured to give to a loan officer, it was like, oh, wow, I think I actually have a good system here. So. Tell me about that specific situation. Like how did that happen? Did they come to a class? Yeah. So I actually started engaging with them on social media, commenting on their stuff, you know, trying to conversate with them through Storytie, you know, and their stories on Instagram or Facebook, you know, any time you can get in their DMs, that's where you can really start growing that relationship. So I always try to aim to get into their DMs, whether that's Facebook or Instagram. And then I would start building conversation and nothing selzy just talking to them about their daughter about, you know, their kid and sometimes about their business too. And then, you know, providing a service where, hey, I would love to sit down with you. And right down your business and show you some ideas, I think would really do well for you in your business. So kind of consultation is what I offered. And so I would meet with them, they would, and I would tell them to come to office instead of her coffee or lunch. I'm a big person about staying in the office. And I've also encouraged our real, you know, our loan officers to do that too. We have a huge space, plenty of room to have private meetings. So I always brought them in the office. So then when we sat down and we had that consultation and they, I started seeing them get excited and be like, wow, I really like this. This is different. I think I want to work with you guys. And I had realtors that were like, who would you recommend out there that would be a good fit for me? And I'm like, oh, okay, well, let me be right back. I'm going to go grab so and so and bring them in here and introduce you to them. So it was kind of just based off relationship building on social media and then asking for an appointment for them to meet with me. And then I always brought them into office. We're lucky to have a great space that we can do that here. But that way I'm in here with them. They see our office. They see our culture, our culture is really big here. They see the media room. I show them the social media room and equipment that they get to use and have access to for realtor partners that do business with us. And then when I sit down with them and consult with them, set all their social media platforms up. That's when they kind of naturally themselves ask, hey, who would you recommend out here? I kind of want to work with you guys. This is really valuable for me. So that's kind of how it worked. I'm curious about the conversation of, you know, so you get them to the office because you did a great job kind of socializing networking, right, over social media, right? And let's set the class aside for a moment because this example came in directly because they want to kind of a consultation about how to move there. How did that transition, you know, you show? Does it happen just naturally? Like you're walking around, they're showing all this incredible stuff in their head. They're like, wow, I don't get this from my current lender. And they're thinking, are you thinking, are they thinking like, well, does that mean if I do business with foundation mortgage, I get to use this media room? Like I'm going to continue to get some, like is that what happens? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so fun to see their face because they walk in their office and we have created space. Our office is more about events. Like we kind of designed it to like be like, almost like an event center, more than like an office where you work. So there's, there's tons of spaces, even outside the media room, that's content. Hey, you, there's a green wall that says, let's get social. There's a graffiti wall that has the Knoxville. We have a, you know, all these places that you can shoot content or get some head shots in. So when they walk in, they're like, this place is different. And I'm like, oh, yeah, we're all about social media marketing, all about content, all those videos you see on my personal page, I do it all in here. We have realtors come in. And sometimes we would have realtors in the office shooting content while they're coming in. So that's always fun to see that is an amazing process. Yeah. So we like, there's just a clarify. There's no selling. There's no selling. Oh, I, I do not approach them trying to sell them on, you know, created cells itself. They just sells itself. They literally just ask me, hey, I, I like this. This is, I get, like all this here, I get access to, like, this is valuable. Like, I would love to partner up with someone and they don't find it weird at all. So they do. They do. They're like, hey, Megan, like, how do I participate in this? Right? Right. They get like kind of phomo. They're like, well, this is like different, like, I mean, even some of the realtors are like hanging out here, you know, sometimes, like some of our partners, because they're like, it's just a cool vibe. It's hip and there's always something going on. Your own version of a shared workspace, like a we work, you know what I mean? But it's in your own. And we offer that like we say, hey, you can come and play yourself. We love when our realtors come here and we collaborate together. This our home is your home kind of thing. So it's, it's different. It's a, it's all about family. It's all about relationship, not transactional. And they feel that and that kind of makes it more of an organic transition where they just want to be working with us and doing business with us. But it's really fun because we do become really good friends with these people too. Yeah. I mean, and make a good partnership. But yeah, it's, you know, obviously my content had a lot to do with that. So putting out content that attracts them, which is educational content about, you know, social media, kind of like what you do, you know, how to use your social media properly, how to amplify your business using social media, doing tips, always doing my stories, talking about what we're doing, showing the behind the scenes. That's huge, huge, huge value is for loan officers and mortgage companies to not just show content videos, but get on your stories and show behind the scenes of the value that you bring to your realtor partner. So I'm always getting video of me meeting with realtors, you know, shooting their content, like I'm making sure someone's shooting me doing that stuff. So then I put out my stories because that's also really valuable and stands out. Well, these are the new skills that we're pitching all the time, right? To my phone. I always hold this up as this is the new, you know, skill we need to learn how to use this. I always have it. I'm always using it. Yeah, constantly. So and I love that I've been able to do all this and even our loan officers, when I've taught them how to do it, you know, you're just doing this all from your phone, sitting at home or sitting at the office, you know, so I just really like it. And it's so easy for me to build relationships on social media. I'm constantly having conversations in the dance with realtors and loan officers and, um, and we meet, it's like we already know each other, you know, from those conversations. Well, we're going to definitely put a link to your Instagram and other stuff in the show notes for people who are listening and want to see what he is making doing content wise. Yeah, probably love it. Let me ask you then about classes in your area because it's, it's funny. I talked a lot of elbows all over the country and when I get them on the, you know, the right page in terms of like you should be teaching classes, right, leading with education and all that kind of stuff. Do you find also now in your, in your local market? So Knoxville isn't that big, right? No, it's not. Right. No, but I'm making a point here is this is an example. I'm sure a lot of other L.O.'s or mortgage companies see what you do. Yes. And last day and many of them, I'm going to assume, no, I might be wrong because you know, when you assume, but I'm going to assume a lot of them still haven't tried to duplicate what you do. Oh my gosh. It's so funny. You say that because it just blows my mind that they have it and you think that they would at this point, I've been doing this for about a year and a half now that we started really pushing it and they're obviously seeing the mortgage companies are seeing these realtors switch to us, you know, come to us like these realtors and it's nothing secretive. Like it's kind of out there what we're doing, like with the glasses and my social media, they know me, you know, and they're like, what the heck? But they still don't, they're still not doing it. It's, it's, all this in the office don't understand like, it's crazy. I don't know why, but they're just not, they're none of their marketing, none of their loan officers are, and, and another thing, all of our loan officers, you know, we were bring on loan officers. Kind of, we don't require it, but we really do push them to be on social media just as much as the company is and that I am, you know, because we're just a social media driven mortgage company when it comes to marketing. How do you learn to teach a particular topic, whether that's reals, maybe you're going to do chat GPT or something, but what's your kind of process? I'm very curious because I go through, you know, do the same thing you do in terms of teaching. How do you learn to prep to teach a topic? Um, I mean, obviously this is all self-taught. I, I do follow a lot of social media marketing people, including yourself, you know, to kind of get inspiration from, and that's how social media works and until people, hey, take a reel that you like and you see and do that, you know, because no one, you, it might be the same, but no one is, you just like no one's me. So we might do the same video, but it'll be different because we're different people. So it just kind of self-taught, you know, it was trial and error too. I have to say that. And I do send out surveys after my class is to get feedback on the big survey person. Now, I'm a nerd when it comes to that, I do it in our company too. I want to make sure like what we're doing is great because sometimes people filling out a form, you're going to get more out of that than asking them in person or over the phone. And actually that has helped. So I will say the surveys have helped because we've told them like, hey, what did you enjoy from the class? What did you not like? What would you like to see from us? And that has actually kind of helped me build our classes and to learn how to actually market it and teach it to the realtors. What do you, what do you use to send the survey out? I use Jotform. Okay. To send the survey and just basic questions. And I just send it out through email and after the event bright, I just take all the event bright and connect it to MailChimp and then upload the survey, tell them we would love to hear their feedback and we send it out. And then the loan officers also follow up with a phone call after the class. Hey, thank you for coming to the class. We really appreciate you coming. That's when they kind of offer to meet with them as well. Like if you found this valuable or if you'd like to explore more about Instagram, I would love to sit down with you and show you that. So I do have a follow up procedure after each class too. So all those things have helped us grow and make the classes more like just better, like structure wise. So that has helped me kind of figure out how to teach the classes. It's important to get feedback in my opinion. Always. Yeah. I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want to learn from everybody. So that's why I do the surveys and do the follow up phone calls to make sure that everything is doing good. The follow up phone calls, LOs are making those. I assume, you know, what's happening is LOs are out there. They're inviting agents to classes. You guys are track who invited to that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. So we usually, we have a system in our serum where realtors are tagged by which loan officers working with which we're constantly having those conversations out about an office. So most people know who is working with who to be honest because we're just very open about that in our culture. And, you know, we print out the list before the class and I pass out the list to each loan officer, hey, this is who has signed up. So that way they have a heads up of who's coming and then they know who's coming. And then that way, when they check in for the class, we have a check in spot and people that didn't sign up, I do get their name written down. So I want to make sure we have everybody who came in that door. So even after the class, we then sit down with the loan officers. We get out the list of people that didn't sign up that we added that day. And then we say, hey, this is the plan. We're going to call them. You call them. You call them. And sometimes the loan officers teach the class with me. So I'm not always teaching alone. It was just me at the beginning and it was doing okay, but I was like, you know what? I think we need to start having you guys up here with me to actually teach. So let me pause on that for a second. Why do you think that's important? So this was from trial and error. So I started, like I said, just me and it was doing good and loan officers from the class. I had them going around helping while I was teaching, because obviously some of them are like, how do I even open Instagram on my phone? So they were going around showing the realtors connecting with them, having those, you know, one-on-one conversations. And then obviously like before the class and after class, like little socialization. But we noticed like the closing ratio was just like not really there. So then we implemented the survey and the follow-up phone calls that definitely helped with getting appointments, but it still just wasn't just right, you know, because they liked what I was doing. They like what I was saying, my teaching the class. So then I started thinking, well, how about we rotate and have loan officers up here with me teaching? And I just hosted and kind of, I'm still kind of involved, right? MC. We started doing that and that really helped, because that makes them the star too. And they're like, ooh, this loan officer is saying how they get on social media, you know, they're showing me how to do video and I can do that with them and they can come to my open house and do that with me, you know, instead of me doing it and teaching it. So again, I'm still involved in the teaching of the class, but now it's like me and like two loan officers. Right. And then how we do it is, you know, all the realtors that we're not working with that and come to that class, whoever was teaching that class, they get those realtors that are not taken already. Yep. And we just split it. So it's all about open door, open floor policy when it comes to when you own a team or a company, right, trying to split realtors. So there's a lot of systems out to be in place and things like that, but it's doable, totally doable. No, thank you for taking us through that, because that's a point I want to highlight that. There's people listening that a lot of people don't have a, you know, like some companies have a biz dev person, right, and not everybody does. And yet the thing I wanted to make sure we illustrate is like just because you have a biz dev person doesn't mean you should like outsource the entire thing. It's a matter of fact, I had a conversation with somebody the other day in L.O. who has or had biz dev people out there as the face. And to your point, you just described about like if if the biz dev person is always the center piece of that, right, there's no relationship building with the loan officer, you know, those companies you've seen where the L.O. is just kind of sitting in the office and they get fed from the biz dev team. Yes. Yes. And it's like it's really hard to build that really deeper connection relationship. If you're not kind of in the trenches, rolled up sleeves, L.O. with age, right? I mean, yeah, it's, it's like I said, I was doing it on my own, right? And then trying to bring them in, I was, I was obviously attracting, we were getting a lot of traction. We're like, okay, we're getting some attraction, we're getting speed. And then I was like trying to transition or like, you know, make those connections and it was like, uh, so I think ultimately you have to kind of do, you can have to do some trial and error when it comes to that because everyone's going to be different probably that even the area that you're in's bigger city, maybe you're something. And you know, still to this day, we're tweaking some things when it comes to the classes and stuff. But, um, you know, overall, you know, overall, it's really been great and it's doable. You just have to start doing it. You know, you just, like they say, you just have to start getting on social media. So, you know, just start teaching the classes and, you know, it is important to maybe have it in-house because if you have the facility, yeah, if you can, yeah, and, you know, to have an in-house marketing person to collaborate with and team up, you know, that's not for every, you know, not everyone has that, but, you know, we went through a lot of social meeting marketing companies and the reason, you know, another reason why I started doing this is because I was so tired of not standing out and just looking like the other mortgage companies that they were working with and how am I going to attract realtors and clients when I look like, you know, my competitors. So I'm a big believer. I'm no one knows your business better than yourself and it is a lot. But if you can time block and really dedicate time to your social media and work together as a team, you can create this and do this yourself. It is possible. Can you briefly walk us through kind of your class promotion strategy, how you get butts and seats? Yeah, yeah, so you have to be talking about it all the time, every day, all day. I did experience with this where I didn't market it as much and it was definitely not as many people showed up. We had one class, it was a beginner Instagram class and from the moment we launched it on Facebook and everything social media platforms, I started talking about it. I started reaching out to realtors. I'm posting about it, but I'm also in my stories talking about it every day. I'm getting my loan officers to talk about it. I am going in DMs and sending them the event bright link to realtors. I am, you know, just constantly marketing it up until the very last day of the class. And I didn't experiment with this where I didn't market as much. I just got on every now and then I wasn't on my stories as much and not a lot of people showed up. I noticed. So it's really important that you don't just post it and say, hey, I'm doing this class next week or two weeks from now. Because even if it's the same week or if it's next week, people forget about it, realtors are going to forget about it. And if you don't stay on top of mind, they're not going to come. And some of them even signed up and just didn't come because they're like, oh, honestly, I forgot about it because I didn't see you. They told me that. They were like, you weren't talking about it as much. I need you on there telling me this, you know, so I've seen that mistake with multiple companies in multiple classes from other mortgage companies where they post it and I kind of forgot about it because they just posted it and then they never talked about it after they announced it. And then you see the pictures of their classes and they're not very full. We have an average of like probably 50 to 70 agents per class. Wow. That's great. That we have. Obviously we've built that over time, but to your point, you've been consistent with all the things. Do you do any email marketing to promote? Yes. So we do do that. So before the class, we send it out like the day we announced it, obviously. And then the week of the class, we send out an email, just reminding them if there's something they need to bring like a laptop or a headshot or just make sure you look good that day because you're getting on camera. You know, I make sure all those things are in there too because I've noticed like you can't just say, hey, this is a video class. You have to let them know like what it consists of even though you think, oh, it's a video class they should know that they're going to get on video. So look decent that day. That would help to let them know. Yeah. I know. It's just like they just don't know. And so I do let them know like, hey, you're going to be getting getting on camera. So please come dressed and ready. Please bring your laptop for your Canva class and make sure you have your head shot, you know, logo, all those things. So we do do emails the day we announced it. And then like I said, the week of the class, we do it. And then in terms of to your database of agents, there are several promotional messages. It's one generally. Yes. Okay. All right. Just curious comparing that kind of toe to what we're doing over here. Yeah. All right. Very cool. Very cool. You've got to follow up. So you got a lot of the right systems in place, which is awesome. You're going to hear. Systems are huge when it comes to this for sure. Yeah. I've learned that. I've learned that over time. Like if you don't have a system and sometimes people even know like what should the system be. Yeah. But just like I said, again, trial and error, you know, just continue trying different things, you know, team up with people, you know, ask your or their loan answers you work with and just see if anyone come up by us and ask your realtors, hey, you know, what would you like to see next time? Yeah. I'm always about just being open and saying, what else can we provide, you know, whether that is social media sells training or, I don't know, like a CPA or I don't like anything. Just let us know. Make sure it's and because I know you've asked that question, do you find that there's a pattern of the same three topics that they request? Um, kind of, yeah, I mean, obviously all of them want to learn Instagram. That's a big one. I would say is probably number one of the most requested for us. Yeah. And then a lot of them say TikTok, Facebook doesn't seem to be too popular as much, but we do Facebook classes. We did one last week and then YouTube, YouTube recently has been a little bit of an interest, but that's definitely, I've noticed for realtors that are more advanced on their marketing, like they're already doing stuff on social media. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So here's a question. And I'm thinking some of the yellows, the comments I've had or heard over the years of like doing all these classes. What is the caliber of agents you tend to find in your class, or does it vary across the spectrum? Oh gosh, it varies, um, you know, like I said last week we had a class and there was some advanced, you know, marketing, social media marketing people in there, but there was also some very beginners like they're, they just created a count, you know, like also in terms of real estate, you know, experience production levels, that kind of stuff. Production? Yes. So, um, yeah, it's kind of varies. It's kind of all over the place and I've noticed as the more and the more we do these classes and I feel like we keep getting better, like our class structure and our PowerPoint keeps getting better, that, you know, more and more like producers come to the class and even some teams have come to the class together. So like last week, we actually had two teams come to the class together. So, um, but I also started target marketing teams and team leaders and brokers having those conversations with them. Yeah. What does that look like? Is that a direct outreach? Uh, yes, that's a direct outreach that's through social media again, um, just getting in their stories, start engaging with them, tagging them, you know, anytime you post content, you should be posting realtors. People think that's so weird. I don't find it weird. So every time I post a video, I tag all realtors, all the realtors that I want to possibly go after, I tag them. So you can tag up to like, I don't know, like 25 people on a post or video, so every time I post something, I always tag all the realtors because I want to make sure of your kids or whatever video. Not if it's a personal thing, but if it's an educational thing or a video of, um, you know, like, yeah, relevant, I always, always, I want to make sure that they're seeing me at all times. And I have noticed that that does help too when it comes to capturing because eventually, you know, even some of them that maybe didn't come by class, but I always tagged them. Eventually, they came to us and they're like, hey, I think we want to talk to you. So again, about staying on top of mind, I feel like email, in my opinion, you know, I love emails. I think they're great. I don't think you should ever get rid of them. But social media to me is definitely the best and most easiest way to stay on top of mind. And they're going to open that. They're going to open that story. Do we know if they're going to open the email? Maybe. But they're definitely going to open that story because when they see that circle at top, people are so nosy that they want to see what you're talking about. You know, and, you know, when you get tagged, you can't be untagged. So they have to see my video when I tag them. And they can't help but to see what I tagged them in when they watch it. Are you ever leveraging any, you know, hashtags for local stuff or, you know, hashtag, Knoxville. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I always use like Knoxville Realtor, Knoxville Real Estate, Knoxville Homes, Knoxville Houses, you know, anything, you know, with realtor in it. And then we've also started dipping the Nashville market. So recently, we've had realtors reach out to us and say, Hey, would you ever come to Nashville to teach these classes and Nashville's not that far from us? Yeah. We're in the center of Tennessee. So we have like Chattanooga Nashville Memphis. And so now I'm starting to kind of outreach in other areas too to maybe see if we can get into those cities around us too. What's your real quick, just keeping an eye on the clock, but what's your thought around Zoom, right? In person versus Zoom virtual. I like both. You know, just recently I started using Zoom, you know, for realtors that have reached out to me and have signed up to have a consultation with me through my stand store, you know, that's all my videos. And was like, Hey, I kind of want to know like, what are you all about? Like the value, bring us to you, do these classes. So I've done Zoom calls and I've done zooms where I've gone over their social media and done an audit before. And I think there's, there's nothing wrong with that, you know, I've done it several. Everybody who's already part of my community, like as members, that's what I'm coaching them to do all the time. Do a digital law. And I can't tell like I do, I do like four of them a week over Zoom and I was on one, I think I was yesterday with this woman, she's been in the business 20 years. She's in the top 100 agents here in Vegas and you would think, Oh, she's got it all together, right? No, she's been doing business, you know, this, the traditional way referrals, past clients, all that kind of stuff. But her presence of social media and she knows it and she came to one of her classes, right? And she all of a sudden the lights go on and then she's like, Hey, will you come teach the Reels hooks and scripts class to my team? Like, yeah, I think we could do that. Oh, yeah, I love that. It works. Yeah. It totally works. You said something. I don't want to bypass this. You called it your stand store, which I'm not very familiar with, like I'm used to like link tree and all that stuff, right? Yeah. So stand store. Like a link tree, right? It's like a link tree. You just have more options on there as far as like, you know, downloadable forms, scheduling appointments, collecting money if you're selling like coaching or something like that. If you wanted to charge for something, I like stand store better. I personally like it, but link tree is just as good and it can do all that too. I just like the setup of it and the look of the aesthetics for stand store. Well, the thing I want to point out to everybody, you'll then when you go go to follow her, by the way, you're probably listening to what the hell's here Instagram. So it's Megan underscore Galbraith, right? Yes. Okay. And you can also just look up her name and you'll find her. Yeah. But the the stand store, like you guys know, link in bio, right? And then you click on that thing and it takes you to a page. What you've done so brilliantly there is you've got the Instagram workshop sign up, right? Here. You've got, do you want to optimize? So this is a digital audit and Instagram audit. You want to optimize your profile, submit your request. You've got a form. Hey, you want to host a workshop at your brokerage? You've got a downloadable Instagram profile guide. You know, you mentioned something real quick. When somebody goes to my stand store and they schedule a consult with me and I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute. What the hell is that? People want to know what that is. Like this is how you do that. Use the tools. I don't know if you pay for this. I don't care what it is. It's 5, 10 bucks or 20 bucks a month. It's worth it. It's a it's a capture mechanism. You can do this with your calendarly also, by the way. You know, you'll have 15 to 30 minute zoom call consult. Let's do a digital audit. Let's do a Google business profile review. Like we ask Google. I love Google. What's it going? Guys, the reason why I wanted to have you on, Megan's, because you are like textbook 101. And I mean that with all respect of like how you should be executing to add value to real estate agents. And everyone can do it. It's just up to you to implement it and just go out there and do it. Like I said, I just jumped right into it and had no experience and just kind of learned while I did it. So it just shows that anyone can do it is just, you just got to get out there, start putting out and obviously start putting out content because people do look at that. And that's what attracts and kind of lines up everything else. So you do need to be active and posting every day if you can. And it doesn't have to be multiple times, at least once a day and also get on your stories. I'm a big, big, big believer on stories. That's where you really build relationships in a community with the people that are following you. And I think about that. All right, real quick. Why do you, because obviously, reals gets a lot of love because it's a lot of outreach, new followers. And so I do that, but I love some stories because that's where I get on there and I talk to my friends. I talk to my family, I talk to my community, the people that are following me. And that's where I have, like I conversation with them, like we're doing right now. That's how I get my stories. I'm like telling them about my day. I'm telling about what's going on. What are we doing? How are, how am I feeling? How are they feeling? What is going on in the world? Like that's just what I do in my stories. And I get so much engagement and interaction that I do on like anything else. And I do this on my Facebook and I do this on my Instagram stories. And honestly, that's where I have actually captured the most business is on my stories and being active in my stories. But you need to be doing brills because they go to your profile and that does help you get followers and people do like to go check you out. But once they follow you, you got to build that relationship, you know, to potentially get that appointment to get that realtor partner to work with you. So that's really key. That's, that's a little nut. And stories are key. I push those, even when I'm teaching my class, my realtor partners, I'm like, you need to get on your stories all the time. And that's where you can kind of practice at getting good on video in my opinion is getting on stories. Because you can mess up on there and people don't care. Let's go. It's gone for hours too. Yeah. So you just, that gave me a couple of nuggets for myself personally because I'm pretty, I'm not, I'm honestly, I don't think I'm great at Instagram. Like I can do this thing and that interview and then repurpose this video and get a bunch of views. The talking heads. But I'm not great at the story side of thing of like, and I've been watching you, you know, what you said about stories and what you said is you're talking to your friends and that, and for me, that was a shift in that moment because I, you know, I don't feel like I've, I've got to, there's no agenda other than feel like you're telling your friend, hey, man, what's up? Here's my day. Like, here's the shit that happened or whatever, right? Here's the good stuff. And you're just, and it's a little bit challenging to do that to a phone. But once you get beyond that, the key point you made, I love the, the marriage of reals, you know, but for those who don't know, reals are great because they're going to go out to people who don't already follow you. They're going to expand your audience. So you're going to have followers. But then the key thing you made was the dotted line from reals to stories, which is great. I see the thing you got me with your hook and I'm in, but I want to get you now more personally. Yes. That's where the stories come in. Exactly. That's where the stories come in. They can't get to know you when you're reals. Like, obviously, they're following you. They're going to see all those and by tagging them with every real that you post also helps with them seeing it. But really, that's not personable, like even tagging, obviously, but stories. That is where you make the connection. That is where you build a relationship. And it literally just, just get on there while you're driving in the car, like you're going through the drive through, hey, you know, I'm getting a Starbucks. It's been a day today. How's everyone feeling? Yes or no? Are we like liking this day or not? It's intense. You know, and it's engaging and people are like, oh, my God, yeah, this day sucks. You're like, oh, tell me about it, man. Like, hey, how's business, by the way? Yeah. And then you transition it. So I'm a really big story pusher, like you'll see me a lot of my stories. You know, and I even show you my behind the scene, like my life with my kids, my family and vacationing and stuff. So that's where all my personal stuff gets posted. And then I try to keep my reals like educational and more business, but my personal who I am and all that stuff goes on my stories all the time. So people can really get to know who Megan Galbraith is, you know, because people when I get to know you, so they like no and trust you. That's why realtors work with you, just like that's why clients work with you. So, you know, realtors are going to be attracted to people that they like. So, you know, and you want to do business with people that you have things in common. So that's why stories are really important for loan officers to do so they can get to know you. There might be something like your big football fan and you're talking about their stories and they're like, Oh, man, I love football too. Oh, dude, me too. And then, you know, it just transpires and then you can maybe make a connection and meet in person eventually. Right. Love it. Listen, I got to tell you this has been a crash course, a clinic in how to attract, engage and convert realtors. So. Yes. So once again, how do people, if they want to connect with you, where would you want to direct them? I'll put links in the show notes, but just tell us. Yeah. So I am on Facebook. So definitely find me on Facebook and then I am on Instagram. Make sure to follow me on Instagram. I'm also in TikTok. I don't get on there as much as I probably should, but I'm definitely on there if you would have followed me on TikTok and I just started YouTube channel. But yeah. So I'm kind of everywhere. YouTube is new. I'm dipping into that this year, but yeah, follow me, but Instagram is my platform. It's Megan underscore, Galbraith underscore. Okay. We'll link that up in the show notes so people can easily click. If you're listening right now on your mobile phone, you know what to do. Just scroll down, find that link, follow her. By the way, DM or let her know that you actually heard her interview on this podcast. That would be pretty cool. Yeah. I'm here to answer any questions. And I love talking to people about this on my open book. So definitely follow me and just say, if you're in any of these states, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Colorado, or Oklahoma, ha ha ha. Yes. And you're looking for a forward thinking company, such as foundation, then, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just join the team. We love it. We do this for our loan officers. We'd love to be a part of it. So come join. All right. So Megan, I can't take you enough. Appreciate your time today. Hey, I joined it. I can talk this all day. And I learned from you too. It's been great. I've been doing this. We're all learning from each other. Trust me. All right. So listeners, you know what to do. If you like this episode, please leave us a review. And if you liked it a lot, hey, share it with somebody else. That's also how we grow. So yeah, I appreciate you guys tuning in. We'll see you on the next one. Bye. Hey, guys, what's up? Real quick. You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before. And you just want to quickly remind you of that. You're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling done for you agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you. Everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, attract and convert agents into referral partners. Plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class, getting agents, butts and seats, partnering with affiliates. Real easy. But that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top LOs, authors, speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market. And as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members, you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months. And we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you. So you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagemarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call, we'll have a chat. We'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro. Hey guys, what's up real quick? You've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before and I just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchase loans, you need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, attracting convert agents into referral partners, plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class, getting agents, butts and seats, partnering with affiliates, real easy, but that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top L.O.'s authors, speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market. And as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members, you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months and we'll provide that list upload into our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagemarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call, we'll have a chat, we'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro.