Lessons in Leadership and Growth from the Top 1%

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, what is up, everybody? Jeff Zimfer. Welcome to this episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. Once again, I am always thrilled that you're tuning in and would love to see you guys jump in our private Facebook group. You know what to do by now. You've got a Facebook. You type in Mortgage Marketing Radio and you fill out a couple of questions and we approve you, assuming you are indeed a practicing mortgage professional. We try and keep this group exclusive to mortgage originators, right? Retail lenders, brokers are all welcome. We're just trying to minimize vendors, software providers, right? People trying to sell you stuff. That's not what that's all about. So please join us in the private Facebook group and before I do announce our special guest and what we're talking about here today, I know that more agent referrals is what a lot of you want. And I also know that many of you are struggling to get agents to respond. How do I know? Because I talk to many of you across the country every day because I work with loan officers in my market here. I work with real estate agents in my market and nationwide. And what I do know is that more often than not, the same lame sales pitch falls flat when you're trying to approach real estate agents. It offers little tangible value and your sales approach is putting you in the commodity box because you usually show up and sound like most other loan officers calling and pitching with the same offer and pitch. Therefore, I'm excited to show you a better way. My agent classes turn key plug-and-play agent class platform helps you break through the noise, deliver tangible value and attract agents to send you referrals with no chasing or no cold calling. Never again, will you wonder where your next purchase referrals are coming from? How do I know? Let me just share one quick win with you from one of our members, the Flame Group, Brian the Flame, who recently hosted one of the many classes we offer. And he shared with us in the group his marketing win for the day as he had 20 people register for the personal branding class that we provide for you. Immediately following the class, two appointments were scheduled for one-on-ones for Brian and his team to dig in with those two agents to learn more and talk about a partnership together. And that's just the immediate impact, not including what happened days and weeks after the class and then when the agents come back to your next class or they engage with you on social media and we lay all this out for you in a completely plug-and-play platform that gives you the done-for-you power points, the speaker notes, these social media images to promote the handouts. We even put together the entire event promotion strategy and system for you, emails, SMS messages, landing pages, confirmations and reminders and you building your own database of targeted real estate agents that are engaging with you so you can add more agents to your bus. If you want to learn more, you go to mortgagemarketing.pro, check out the quick video. Okay, so in this session, I'm actually thrilled and excited. I had just had an amazing conversation with my special guest, Terry Santiago Parker and she is out of the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. She is one of the top women originators in the country for 2022 on the Scotsman's Guide. She is closing an average of 35 loans per month and we have a wonderful conversation about team, building a team about your customer experience, about creating an amazing work environment for you and the people you work with and surround yourself with, about balance and mindset and getting to a place of acceptance in your business, knowing yourself worth and being able to stand confident in that to attract the right people to you for both your own team, your partners, the people that are within your own sphere of influence in work but also with the right partners and consumers as well. There's so much else we talk about on this conversation. I wish we could have kept on going. I've learned so much from Terry and I think she's also one of those special human beings who's got the right place in her heart and you can tell that that is true when you hear unpack everything she's doing and what she's all about. So I hope you enjoy this episode and make sure you check the links for everything we talk about on this podcast including how to connect with Terry on social media and elsewhere. Without further ado, let's get into this week's show, Teresa, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited too because what's great about what I get to do here is, first of all, talk to mortgage professionals, real estate professionals, right, all over the country. And oftentimes I really don't know much about the person before we hit record and that's where we're at today. So first of all, you get the bravery award, welcome. And then secondly, for the listeners and so for me as well, give us a brief background on how long have you been in the biz and then what's the unit's volume last year? Okay. Well, I won't let my age out, right? So I've done this since I was 17 years old and let's call it 20 years in the business so you can do the math. I run a team and a branch and I also run a region with End Cross Country mortgage, which is awesome. Okay. And so I always want to give volume, I give, I eliminate COVID time frame from that time because that wasn't really real, essentially. And so we do about 35 units a month on my personal team, which is about seven and a half to eight million a month, we're trying to achieve 10 million. That's the magic number. If we hit 10 million, everybody goes to Vegas, that's the deal. And so that's what our goal is at this time. And our branch does about 15 million and we do about 80 to 90 loans a month, which is my circle, basically. Got it. And obviously you're still actively originating? I am. I am the loan officer of the group, essentially, yes. So that's 35 a month is you? That's me. Yeah. That's me. Working hard, doing my thing. And what's the team breakdown that allows you to perform at a high level like that? Well, first of all, we make things as I call it boring. And what I mean by that is very systematic. It's everything has a process. Everything is very, you know, all about what the needs of that customer are and that's kind of our focuses. And so, you know, my job is to make as many friends as possible and fill their needs and their job is to fill the needs of the client. And I think just over the years when you do things for a long time, you kind of fail forward all the time. And so I probably have made every mistake in the book that you could even think of. And I think through those failures, it's kind of high learned to, you know, teach and coach them, honestly. So. Okay. What's the setup of your team, meaning like how many L.O.A.'s, et cetera, right, for all your loan staff? Okay. Have three senior L.O.A.'s. And so their job is basically, you know, taking the application, collecting the documents, you know, being the pre-approval analyst, essentially. I have one team captain who is my 28 year old son. So I kind of made the Parker team like from birth as the joke of the office because both of our sons are on our team. And then I have two juniors. So the one junior assist me and the other junior assist my son who's my team captain. That's a pretty cool role and title. First of all, that you have your sons there, nice family, because what does the team captain do? So he is the escalation guy, he structures scenarios, he, you know, feels day to day questions. He pretty much replaced me. And so it's funny because I get coached by the core, right? And so a couple of years ago, I went to a summit and I ended up reading a book there called The Connectors Way. And before I read that book, I thought I had it all figured out because I was like, you know, I was doing 20 loans a month, I was working 80 hours a week and it was kind of like do that and repeat. And I just couldn't get past that. And so when I read The Connectors Way, I realized one, I needed to get myself out of the process and not feel guilty or have an ego about it. Unfortunately, us loan officers sometimes have like a little bit of an ego, a little bit sometimes. Yeah. And so I feel like just knowing that I need to remove myself and surrendering the control to him and empowering him to do, you know, he needs to do, allowing me to then connect with people. Okay. That's great. So I think that was the game changer or a big, you know, big game changer. Well, that's very, very interesting. And that's what I find is I kind of do some research as well, reading different books and stuff like I'm sure you do, as you just described, The Connectors Way, I'll make sure we put a link to that in the show notes. I'm looking at it here in Amazon. But what I also find is that, and this is a game I'm trying to get better at is we want to spend more time in our zones, so to speak, right? In our magic, what do you've heard it called different things? Our sweet spot and, you know, when we're in the zone and when we're in our superpower. And so I love the fact that you've got a team captain, which you wreck, you were holding on to those things too much because you wanted to control. You felt that nobody could deliver that service at the same level you could, which kept you from actually spending more time in your true genius zone. Someone said to me, in one of my coaching groups once, not in the nicest way, she said, would you consider yourself exceptional? And I was like, you know, I would say so, I think I'm a pretty good loan officer. You know, I would say that, you know, I would hope that I'm, you know, exceptional. And she said, well, then you need to realize that exceptional people need to make exceptions to everything, kind of like clicked in some weird way. And then I kind of got it and said, okay, people look at it like I want to build a team and I want to build an extension of myself. But in reality, like if that were the case, you'd have a million branch managers and a million top producing loan officers and you really don't. So what I realized in that conversation with her is that you just had to make systems and make it simple and hope that you're going to duplicate, you know, one out of 10 people to be a top producer, but that's not really like the reality because some people don't really want to be a top producer, really, too, you know. So I would think that was like a big and like, you know, I had a lot of aha moments and that was definitely one of them was just realizing that, you know, you had to pretty much find everybody's best and highest use and not everybody is good at everything, including myself. What do you think your best and highest use is? I think I am good on identifying what can help somebody grow their business and where I know again, I feel like I made so many mistakes doing it for so long and I'm invested so much because it's like, you know, my children literally are in my team and not only that, but I like care about my team so much truly and I want everything for them. And so I think I've done a good job in being so invested that I really listen, doesn't sound like it on this podcast, but I really listen to what like realtors need and, and, you know, team members need and then I try to fulfill their need, not my, not my need. So that's what I was curious about when you said you think one of your, you know, superpowers if you will is a highest and best use, I believe is the word we used, is helping others grow their business. Are you talking about realtors specifically? I'm talking about anybody and what I mean by that is like, you know, I've done this a long time, three or four years ago, I go meet this top producing guy, right, with the kind where you're like in the parking lot and you've got like butterflies in your belly, you know, and you're like, I'm going to crush it with this dude, I'm going to walk out, it's going to give me all this business, but you're all excited. And then you walk out of the meeting and you're like, holy crap, I'm intimidated now, I'm uncomfortable, right, because this guy's like major. And he says to me, which is so ridiculous at this stage of my career, which was talking a couple of years ago. And he says to me, why do you do this? Like, why, you know, why are you working so much? Like, why are you doing this? I guess it's the money is helping people like, what's your cheesy why? And I got like all star struck and everything. I couldn't really answer. And I left there upset not because I didn't like do the meeting or whatever, but I left there upset because I didn't really feel that I was being true to myself on what my why really was. And what I realized after in doing like a self inventory of that was that I really enjoyed watching other people's success, like that paid forward thing. And so I had like Jenny Groove was one of my top branch managers in Houston, Texas. And like, I remember getting a video from her like on a mountain when she got married in Mexico. Like, look, I take my mom and dad out of the country for the first time. And like, you helped me do this. And so like, she's crying in the video and everything. And me, while she went to work every day, she did her, like, you know, I didn't do her job for every day, right? But I like helped her achieve that. And the feeling that I got from that was so overwhelming that that's kind of what I knew between that and that meeting that I just want to listen to people and help them do better. And then I get really fulfilled by that. And then through that, you get production and money and things like that. It isn't that funny. If you focus on just being of service above all else, right? These good things come to you. Doesn't it really work anymore really? Right? Right? Well, you know why that's cool? Because you don't have the agenda of like, I have to get, get, get, get. Like there is no end game. There is just you being you showing up as you. And if something positive happens or comes out of that cool, if not, that's cool too. It seems like you're like not, not attached to the outcome. What's weird is that it took me longer, I think, to realize that. And I got to this point in my career where I couldn't grow anymore. And I was like, I felt like I was like, this road. And everywhere I went, I was like frustrated because I just couldn't do more business or I was just working more. I wasn't taking care of myself, like all the things. And I think even my husband had said to me, you know, like you need to make a decision at this point, like, you know, and we've been together, you know, 31 years, my husband and I, right? And so he was like, this isn't working. So I was like, oh crap, I'm in trouble, right? Workings too much. Red flag. Yeah. Like, oh boy, danger zone. And so I think that it was all those things that came together that was like, all right, I'm either going to the right side of this road. I'm going to the left side of this road. And, and I'm glad that I took the road that I took it. Let's put that way, you know? All right. So what are some of the shifts changes? What was difficult in your business that you had to, right, go through to make those changes happen? This is, I'm going to give you the first one and the hardest one ever. And it doesn't mean that I'll struggle and go back and then have to do it again. But I have found that I am the number one greatest of all time, Nick Picker. Okay. So I want to be like, oh, you didn't call my customer in 24 hours and, you know, you miss this condition and the underwriter of this and that and, you know, and, you know, why didn't you set up that lunch for 12 and confirm it three minutes early and all that. And so people I found, shocker, don't really love working for Nick Pickers. Right. And so with that comes being a control freak and, you know, all that, right? So then I thought, okay, at what point do you, do you get to this point of balance? We're like, you're still doing those things somewhat because you got to run a business, right? So it's got to be accountability and stuff. So there's got to be some of that to determine how to help people be better and stuff, right? Versus doing it all the time. And like, basically, the message that I found out what sending was, hey, by the way, I don't trust you. I don't have confidence in you. You're not going to do it as good as me. Like, those are the messages I was sending. And I was being like, oh, you know, horrible leader, basically. And so that's so hard. Like, everybody does that, right? You, you know, you go time steps forward, you take 20 back and so forth. And so, you know, my team would be like, yeah, sure. I send those emails at 2 a.m. Bring it. We love them, right? But I do them. I would say 90% less frequently than I did before. And I would say that was like the biggest thing that was something that I had to let go going down that route. It was like a decision, almost like an alcohol, like a weird way. Like, I'm not going to drink anymore. You know, like, I don't drink, but you get my point, you know. And, and, and did you, because most people are reluctant to do that because they think the level with their business operated or the service level is going to drop off when they delegate control. What did you find that happened? I found that if you give clear communication, which is funny because we all know all the right things to do, right? We all know if I have a direct path of how to send leads in and if my wheelchair knows exactly what's going to happen when they, you know, give us a deal and that they know that I'm there if they need me and like all the things. We all know what to do. The thing is is that we all grow, I think, at different times and levels to be able to implement all those things. And so what's shocking is the more you implement those things that you know you're supposed to be doing, the more you do more business. Is that kind of like forced growth because you kind of said, if I don't heard you correctly, like, we may not always be at the right stage to implement those things. Well, I think you've got to be ready. And well, I can say this. I can say that's the way that it was for me. And so it took me, so I joined this coaching program. I'm spending $3,500 a month. My husband's like, maybe it's a cult. Maybe it's not, but 500 hours a month, right? And you know, finance family, you know, faith, all this stuff and everything. And so I didn't listen or implement the things that they taught me for the first two years. Wow, really. And then when I did shocker, my income tripled. What would you say if you could identify? It's not necessarily an easier fair question. But are there, you know, you know, the, you ever see that old example of like, you know, you're filling a, a, a canister or a vase with little pebbles and big rocks and all that. So that's like life and business. There's a bunch of little pebbles. They're sand, but then there's big rocks. What were the big rocks you think that helped you once you finally adopted what they were suggesting you do? I'm like, boy, this is the podcast last therapy session, right? Yeah. I would say I wasn't having the best life. And I would be like, hey, my husband got more love on Father's Day than I got on Mother's Day. And that kind of would sting, right? Or, you know, you know, my son broke his arm and I was like, yeah, I'll be right over there because, you know, my top loan officer drove in from South Carolina and I got to get him set up first. And it was like, I had everything backwards. And then when I realized I wasn't being like the person that I wanted to be because I didn't have my things that mattered most in the right order. And that's for me. That's personal, right? Everybody might have their own thing, but that's me. And that is when I realized that what I saw in my mentors with that they had all those things in check. They had, you know, working 30, 40 hours a week, they had being a good mom. They had spending time with their grandchildren. And they had, you know, doing 30, 40 loans a month, they had all those things. And I was like, all right, why won all those things? And so I finally like surrendered in a sense of saying like, what is it that I'm going to need to do to have all those things? Because if they could do it, let's be real. There's not really Wonder Woman. There's not really Superman, right? They don't really exist for real. Yep. And so I started to think like, well, if somebody else can do it, then I can do it too. And I just, I'm going to have to get uncomfortable to do it. Okay. Which I'm still going through by the way, just to be transparent. Like, I'm still working on that right now. Well, I think that's, that's a danger zone when you're feeling comfortable. You know, I've been listening lately to this audio book called Winning by Tim Grover. Tim Grover's the guy who wrote the first book was called Relentless. And some of the listeners, I don't know if you know who he is, right? It's pretty big out there in terms of personal on the speaking stages. But for those who don't know, he was the physical strengths and conditioning coach for Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwayne Wade, I think Charles Berkeley, Scotty Pippin, like, you know, is as a who, who for Michael Jordan was his very first client. Anyway, this concept about Winning is that that's one of the things that you realize with people who win, right? At a high level is they never, like, you know, they'll take a moment and celebrate. Yes, acknowledge their wins. But then it's like, it's like the Tom Brady quote, what's your favorite ring? The next one. So it's like, once you get like complacency is the onset or beginning onset of like, of mediocre, you know, you can't stay the same. You're either moving forward or backwards. It's funny that you say that because just the other day, I was listening to a like a YouTube thing with Kobe Bryant. And I actually listened to it, I think, on Monday, right? Because we're not always waking up on Monday morning, like, I have a joke. I call it mortgage Monday, mortgage Monday. I do all these things. And so this Monday, I woke up. It's like raining, all these things. I'm like, so I'm like, listen to this Kobe Bryant thing. So then I was like, crap, this is good. I listened to the same thing and on Tuesday, same one. Call my team and I was guys, do you feel that if you're on my team that I expect winners, like I expect to be everybody playing, like, like, I hate to say it, but it's like, if you're not wanting to play at that level and you're not wanting to be in the seat above you, then I'm not the team for you. And Kobe said that like in that YouTube video. And I always like felt weird, like, hey, I don't want to tell my team, like, I don't want them here, right? Or that I don't appreciate them. Like they say, you know, thank your team members 10 times a day, right? Never complaining to your team, duh, duh, duh, duh, all the stuff. But I just was like, wow, I'm so focused on like clear communication. Have I, have I been clear with them that I want you to play at a super high level? That's my expectation. Because that's what I want for my client. And that's what I'm, that's what I'm promising. So if I'm promising that, you had to deliver that for me. I love that. How do you maintain that level of excellence or, you know, expectations with your team? Do you structure weekly meetings and stuff? What does that look like? So first, I believe in super crazy psychotic and sane fun. Okay, nice. Like, I mean, ring the bell and, you know, like run through the office and we have snack attack every day at two o'clock, right? So our team meetings are at two o'clock, our office meetings at two o'clock for 15 minutes, our sales meetings at two o'clock, 15 minutes, our snack shows up at two o'clock. Everybody is like water ice and whatever. So we're all eating, sitting on the couches, talking about what we need to have done. We're making ourselves available to them at two o'clock. So if anybody's on the phone, they're like, hey, listen, I'm going to sit with my manager at two o'clock. So I'm going to have that answer for you. So very clear expectations. We also do quarterly team outings. We do. I offer, hey, I'll do your budget with you. I'm going to help you with your bills, your savings. As a matter of fact, I just had my personal financial planner come into the office on the clock, sit with every employee I have for 30 minutes, answer any financial questions they have, anything, whatever, like whether it's life insurance for OK, whatever. And then what my husband and I are going to do is we're going to bonus them accordingly based on what they want to have that they don't have, whether that be, it's like, hey, you need life insurance and you can't afford it. And it's, you know, three hundred hours a year. Well, we're going to give you a bonus. If you, you know, you meet ex metrics and we're going to pay for your life insurance for the year. That's cool. So we want to like be all in. We want to be like, you have like people look at and go, or let's put this way, I used to look at it and go, I'm paying you. I expect you to show up big and do all my things and whatever. And then all of a sudden, I realize, well, darn, there's a real difference between paying people that want to be here and paying people that don't want to be here. And at the end of the day, they're the ones off on your client about you. Yeah. Hmm, love that love that. That's awesome. You know what I mean? Have you had to let anybody go because they weren't playing at the level you expected? Well, first, I'm going to give them every opportunity to get there, right? And so I have. I had to let go recently. I had a processor work for me for eight years. Like he was like a brother to me. It felt like I was so devastated and very girly like when we had to let him go and mind you to make matters worse without disclosing too much his wife worked for us also. Yeah, well, that stuff. And so the problem was one of them worked in the office, one of them worked on the floor and they complained to each other across the room all day. And it was like, I think when I finally let them go and we went to write the HR thing up, I had 218 coaching or corrective emails to them about like the complaining. Well, so I'm like, I think I pretty much made effort 200 times talking to them, right? And so I had to let them go. And here's the craziest thing. He was my best processor. He was my showed up all the time, never late, never called out, never sick, showed up all the time. Most knowledgeable, systematic guidelines got the job done. The thing that I couldn't get past was like the office cancer of complaining. I just couldn't do it. It was like making me like I wasn't, I was like I'm not excited to get there every day. It's my company. And I forget where I read it. I might have been like a Michael Jordan thing or something, but they said you become an entrepreneur because you then choose who you want to surround yourself with. And so I was like, yeah, I just don't want to be around that anymore. And that was really, really tough. But you know, but it made such an example for everybody else that they were like holy crap. If we're going to let go somebody that's like, you know, an ace. Yeah. Then they really take complaining like seriously. Oh, what was the net impact of morale on your team? Surprisingly, I ended up with the best team I've ever had in 20 some years. Very difficult decision to do though, obviously, as you said, like it took me, let go of the wife first, hoping that the husband would be like, okay, maybe they were working well together, right? Because that's be real. In the mortgage and real estate industry, it's super common now for spouses and families to work together. It's like thing. And so I know for myself working with my husband, when we first thought it working together, the first six months, I think was the first time we ever were going to end up divorced. Sorry, like rural is like, oh my god, this is not going to work. Now obviously I can't imagine my days without him there, of course. You know, it's been six to seven years now. But but I thought, okay, if we let her go, maybe, you know, they're not just, maybe it's not the work environment, maybe they're just not working well together. And it's just too much of their relationship. Right. And so I quickly realized within 90 days that wasn't the case. And sometimes, and I don't know if this is true or not, because I don't know. But maybe sometimes people, they need a new start too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I think, I know, I think back real quick, flashback, when I have been let go someplace in the past, it was probably ultimately the best thing that happened. Right. It was some people need a wake up call, right? Yeah. And you gave them plenty of chances, by the way. So yeah, it's funny, because earlier today, I had a coaching call with my team. And what I wrote down was right activities and right people. Right. Are we doing the right activities? And are we doing them with the right people? That's such a key. Well, that's interesting, because Ron, the owner of Cross Country, first of all, is the most amazing. And this is not like a suspicion or recruiting or nothing like that. But this dude straight up changed my life. And mind you, I'm going to say he changed my life. And in the seven years of inner Cross Country, I may have spoken to him five times. So imagine we say that statement, right? Yeah. And so he said something to me before about top reading. I never knew what top reading meant in business. I was like, Oh, what does that mean? And it basically means like you have somebody that's a processor, but really should be a salesperson. And then you don't really like need a salesperson, but you put them in sales because it's what's best for them. And like some business leaders say that's a horrible idea because you should just let them go if they're not doing a good job in their job. But I look at it and go, well, maybe they're better at something else. And they're a really good like worker and person. And let's try this job instead. And I have right now like four or five people on my team, actually, that I've actually moved around a different positions over time. And till they found the right position that was good for them. And now they're like the most amazing whatever that they're in. Yeah. Well, like you said, they're good people. They've got the work asset ethics. They're a good fit, right? For the culture and all that. Maybe they're just, yeah, in the wrong role. And if that's great that you are willing to find a role for them, that really speaks to how you value people. I'm getting older, right? Let's be real. I plan on giving my business to, you know, my book of business to my son at some point when that time comes. And so I want to, you know, not just because he's my son, but I have a lot of young people on my team. I would say 60% of my team are under 35. And so hand some lot of podcasts, which is like, you know, kudos to them. They're like, you gotta do that. It's like amazing. I'm like, I wanted it. And so I feel like this is their future. And I want to build something amazing for them that I can look back on my retirement and be like, look at these awesome careers that I left for these people. How cool would that be, you know? Yeah, it's very interesting. It strikes a chord with me as well because you're building something special, you know, your leaving legacy is what you are. And I think that you can tell a business when you're dealing with a business, business owner. I think of recently, I just went through two transactions installed two new air conditioners here, a water software. And I, you know, and I've interviewed the three different companies. And I approached this as this is going to be a test for me to test people's customer experience process and see what it's like and how passionate are they? And do I get that feeling? And it's very obvious. You can tell by people's how well are the employees trained, how great is the sales pitch? What's the follow up like? Like it's very obvious and we are drawn to want to have more of those experiences. I'm going to give you something that's such a big nugget. It's the silliest thing that was such a game changer, right? So my husband and I love Myrtle Beach. It's like our place. And so I had to call the water company there, right? I call the water company there and the lady goes, it's a great day in South Carolina. How can I help you? And I stop. I look at the phone and I'm like, well darn, that's different, right? Kind of like the Chick-fil-A, my pleasure. So I sit down and I write down all these word, I call them wall, uh, wall words, right? So words you can't say, words you can say, can't say busy, can't say unavailable, can't say those words, right? Can say, my pleasure, it's a great day, uh, need, you know, all those things. Anyways, so I do a lot of Spanish speaking loans because I'm Spanish, I'm a Spanish being team, I do a lot of Spanish speaking loans. And so my receptionist does not speak Spanish. So when Spanish speaking customers come in, if they call the direct number, they usually there's a gap in communication. Oh, I need to speak to someone so I don't really understand, can you give me your number, et cetera. Anyways, I have a contest, I go, guys, this is just two weeks ago, May 1st, I go, we're going to answer the phone when you call my office that it's going to say it's a great team, it's a great day at the Parker team with cross country mortgage going to help you. And I want to, I want to do a test and see what the reaction is. Do you, I will tell you for a fact that I have not had one Spanish hang up, I have had customers compliment me when they actually spoke to me and or loan officer on my team saying, you guys are so warm, it's such a pleasure calling your office. It's like, what do you feed them there? And like all this stuff, all because of the way they answer the phone. First impression. But it's like, I mean, I was like, I want a, wow, I want a, like I was like, I want you to put them on hold, I want you to walk over to somebody's desk, I want you to tell, like I want you to take their cell phone, I want you to do all things, I don't want you to let them go and I want to let them go. And I literally gave my reception as a hundred bucks on Friday for answering the phone. So, well, oh, that's awesome. We're rewarding behavior, but even better than that is I love the fact that you intentionally thought through that and decided to architect a actual process. You know, well, that could be good and bad because I'm always like trying to improve. And I'm always like, hey, if you're going to be around me, but I like that Michael Jackson song, you know what I mean? Because I know which one. Oh, oh, got it. You know, we're going to be singing that song holding hands together. That's how that's going to go. People tend to look at change and go, they change things all the time. Things are always changing, but you know, and I look at that like a positive. Well, for sure, you know, it's funny because I remember one of my bosses back in the day said something to me, he said, go where you're celebrated, not tolerated. And if people are just tolerating, right, the Teresa Parker team and the vibe and the style, then they're on their way out, right? You are attracting people who want to, like you said, be excited to come to work. Not it's a drag, you know, since you're going to get better performance, you're going to get people who go the extra mile instead of bowing out early. Let me stay late and finish this file because, right? They have a vested interest in it. Plus all the extra stuff you're doing with, you know, the financial advisor and all that jazz. That's really great. I really hope that I'm creating something special because I just, like, I love it so much and it's literally, like, it's what I am so passionate about. Like, you know, my husband's like, we're going on to dinner and we can't talk about loans, okay? I can relate to that 100%. No, it's funny because I remember there's an old saying from an industry, whereas people come for the opportunity, but they stay for the personal development, for like, who they become, right? And so they're coming to you for a job initially. They don't know what they're getting with the TP team, you know what I mean? They might, like during your interview process and all that and they're like, oh, shit, this is something different, right? But then once they're there, they're like, A, does it live up to the external perception, right? And then B, when they are getting recruited away or whatever, oh, we're going to give you X amount of more money. Like, yeah, but you don't have what I have. You know, I'm giving example something that I do and I know that we're on a podcast, but I'm going to show you. Go ahead. We can just scribe it. Literally right here. Every month, I pick three people, right? And they rotate. And I write a thank you card to them. And in it, I'll do like, you know, $50 to $25 to whatever or something very small, right? And mail it to their house. And the card is like mushy. It's like, Mike, like I appreciate you so much, you know, I love that you did this on that file, like whatever, whatever, whatever. And I mail it to their house and everybody gets one every quarter, right? Or like, so an employee might get one once a year. Let's put that way because I rotate quarters and like you send three people, right? Usually I wait for somebody to do like something really amazing. And I send it to them. And you know, my husband was like, why don't you just give us some of my work or why you just leave it on their desk? And I go, I mail it to their house because when they get home 30 minutes late, if they're wife or husband, that's like, you didn't make it to the soccer game. You didn't make it to dinner. Like I know because I was, I'm them, you know what I mean? And so I hear all the time, like the wives of the husband's going, like I just had a sofa. I gave to one of my loan partners that bought a house. And he came on his wife to pick it up. And as he was loading in the truck, his wife said to me, he loves working for you guys. And she was like, seriously, I've worked at my job for nine years. And I never got like, thank you. This is that nothing. And she's like, I can't believe that you guys actually took time to hammer at a card and mail it to him and give him, you know, a $50 gas card. She was like, I literally told my entire family that like Roger has the best job ever. Wow. Hmm. Think there's any potential referrals down the road there. But I'm like, how easy that would be for other, you know, it's like why that's not like super hard. Well, you know what's funny about this. I was attempted to go cliche for a moment. But we all know this. We like, we are aware of that this could be done. The problem is, why aren't you doing it? What's the excuse? And by the way, did you have an excuse before you started? I'm too busy. It was I'm too busy. I don't have any time. I was just tired. Um, the reality is to be honest. And this is why I learned again through like coaching self inventory, all the things is that you do the things that are that you want to do. Yeah. And you do the things that you think are important. And I just didn't like, I'm instead of be like, oh, I'm going to send a real, you know, an email to 10 more realtors instead of doing that. And it's like, well, why don't I do that instead? And then he's going to take an excellent care of the 10 realtors I have. And then I won't lose them. Yep. And um, I just, you know, you just have it all like some people just have it all wrong. And I still have a lot of things all wrong. Don't get me wrong. But I think the one thing that I got is that I really just feel like my people, when you want to like duplicate yourself or meet clones or whatever, some people are like, oh, I'm going to train them. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm like, you've got to just take care of them and make sure that they know that you care more than anybody else. Well, yeah. A leader's job is to lead, right? To draw people right forward in the direction that you want to go. And if they're not willing to fight for you, you know what I mean? Based on who you are and how you make them feel. Then you're going to have unloyal people who are trying to get away with stuff. Probably when you're not looking. You know, the one thing I used to do so bad, which, you know, I still work on, is we have a tendency to like get like all buddy, buddy with our team because there are team. And then we have a tendency to complain to them. All this customer, you know, or, you know, this agent doesn't know this, and, you know, and when I go to coaching, I just hear they always say, like, don't complain to your team, don't complain to your team, don't complain to your team, don't complain to your team. So it's like every time I go to catch myself doing it because it's so natural to do it when you're so cool with your teammates. My husband will be like, you, you know, so I feel like if there was one thing that I learned that I think was one of the most impactful things was just don't complain to your team. Exactly. Yep. Yep. It's okay like in private with your fellow, you know, executives or whatever, or your partner, right? Maybe your husband or whatever. Like you can have those conversations. Yeah, because it all, we don't want to, we don't want to pollute people's minds. Yeah, it's weird how something so, you know, I just, you know, because you know, you do it, right? So I just, I just did it recently about something, about a loan, the guy didn't understand, he explained things so much times like all the stuff. And then like two days later, I heard one of my loan partners go, you know, I really want to work with her. She's just such a pain, blah, blah, blah, blah, I thought they're realtor. And I kind of was like, oh, how do I now go recover from that? One two days ago, I was doing something similar. Interesting. So, you know, I don't want to lie, right? I want to be like myself. It's like that's important. And so even, you know, just this week, you know, it's like I learned something that I was like, wow, I realized how important that is and I need to not do that. Yeah. Well, people will kind of rise to the level of expectations or not, right? And if they don't, well, you know, the conversation there, but that we've got to have those high standards. Who else is going to set them besides the leader? This is, this is an awesome conversation. I think I'm listening, I'm here putting my audience's ears on. And I know there are people, because I've talked about building teams in the past. And this is one of the most sought after tops of topics is how do I build a team, right? And all the different things. So I think you've been doing great, by the way. Thank you. I appreciate that. I want to, the last few minutes we have, I want to get a little bit more tactical because these are the usual boxes I like to check. What is your number one source of business? You're going to think it's crazy, but it's past lines. No, I don't think it's crazy, but what I am curious about now, then, let's let's see, you're doing, let me, would you say like 35 deals a month, something like that. So what, do you have any idea what percentage that is? Yep, it's 44%. 44%. So how do you do that? I do gifting quarterly and not production alone size or anything. I literally do gifting. For example, I'll do hand sanitizers or, you know, funny thing. When rates went down, it was October. I got these little skeletons from Amazon. And my girls cut my face out. And it was one of those skeletons where you can stretch like a, like a gummy. Right. Put my face out. I sent the skeleton with a little candy. And the flyer said, don't be scared to call me and, you know, review your mortgage and my little face scale and people, people literally were taking pictures of it and sending to me saying this is like the funniest thing they've ever seen and stuff. And so I try to be very, very every day with them and not like fake and stuff. I'll do things like jot mother's day plants on their front doors when they get home. They have them and, you know, they're like five bucks. And what I do is I will take like, and when I say monthly, I might do 15 in a week. Right. So you got 60 in a month. Okay. And then I get everybody in my entire office to maybe drop off two. So it's not like I'm taking a whole day running them out on a Saturday and running all over the place and dropping off 15 plants. Really? You just like roll those out your team and say, hey, you take two, you take two and on your way home or whatever? Yeah. You live in this place. So does this person you live in that zip code? So does that person? Can you leave 30 minutes early on Friday and drop them off for me? Wow. And I have a little like string around it, like one of those these yarn and on the yarn, it's my card and the realtor that funded the loan with them card. Very cool. And I bet you show that to the realtor too, right? Of course. Or a lot of times the client calls the realtor and thanks them and thinks that they left it. Ah, really? Ah, interesting. That's, that's cool. And then we work off a perfect work week. So Monday, we call 40 agents and there's a metric to what 40 agents we call Tuesday. We do Tuesday updates, right? That is updates on your pipeline. Wednesday, we work what's called our lead tracker. So we re try to connect with any leads. We haven't converted in the last 60 days. Um, Thursdays, we work our VIPs and pass clients. So things like Mother's Day, Father's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, things of that nature. And Friday, we call our pre-approvals because obviously buyers are shopping on the weekends. Right. And so Monday calling agents, I can't tell you every time it's on Monday, I call agents and they go, you know, I call my mortgage guy three times this morning and he didn't answer and I have this contract. I really have this question. Can you answer for me? Can I give you this contract? All right. So let explain that. What do you mean? You just like, who are these agents you're calling? On Monday, we call 40 agents, 10 of them are agents that we deal with all the time. So these are existing partners. Right. Right. 10 of them, we call that are listing agents on deals we did within the last 90 days. Okay. Got it. 10 of them are whales, just agents that we want to do business with, right? And 10 of them are off a roster of an agent we're already doing business with. So if I'm already doing business with, you know, Gina Romano, Romano, really, I'm going to call 10 people in her organization and I'm going to say, hey, I have any work with Gina and, uh, you know, I saw your name. You're within the same brokerage. I'd love to, you know, how was your weekend and blah, blah, blah. Interesting. So everything that I do, although it seems, it comes from a good place and it's like, you know, comes to my heart and everything or an idea the middle of the night when I wake up and stuff, right? Right. But all of it is very calculated, although not fake. No. Well, it's intentional. Yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I just wrote that down, by the way. Because I've heard people, I know that's a big thing for the core. It's a matter of fact, somebody asked that on a call earlier today. So let me pose you that question. As we know, the Revi market is off the cliff and, you know, the assumption is we've got a bunch of L.O.'s back into the chase after real estate agents. And the question this morning was, you know, should I be that L.O. that's calling agents cold? Because I don't want to, you know, be like that other, all the L.O.'s that are also chasing those agents as well with the same approach. What do you say? So that's the wrong way. I think the wrong way to look at it. I don't coach my loan officers that way. I say the person with the most friends wins if they just happen to be agents than good for you. Mm-hmm. But what you're doing is you're calling and making friends. You're not calling to call agents. And if you look at it like, I'm calling to get agents to get business, then it's not going to, it's going to seem like you're calling to get agents to get business. Well, then what's, what's the, the, the talk track then, right? Because let's say you're an agent. Maybe I don't know you and you're like, on my 40, I'm just like, hey, what's up? This is Jeff at Cross Country. Just checking in. I'm here to help you, me help. How was your weekend? Yeah, do that call whatsoever. I really asked for business at the end. It's more of, not keep in mind. I have two business development person, you know, girls. And I also have an assistant. And so before I make my calls, like on Friday, for example, they'll go through and list commonalities. Hey, I saw that, you know, you go to Village Pub there too. Or I saw you put an ad in Clipper magazine. What's your return? I'm not calling to soliciting you. I'm thinking about putting an ad on the same shopping cart. And I just want to know, like, what's your return on investment? Like, does it work for you? Does it not work for you? And now there's the whole guard. Because I'm not soliciting her now. I'm, I'm befriending her, right? So then she's going to be like, yeah, like it works to me or it doesn't. I'm like, oh, that's so awesome because I've really wanted to do it too, but I didn't want to waste any money. So let's do this market. You know, how it goes, girl. And then I'm like, you know, and I'm Terry. I'm like, listen, if I can ever have anybody for you, let me know. But I really appreciate your time in giving me your advice on, you know, the marketing that you're doing. And you're doing all some things. And now I've a sudden, like, two days later, I'm getting a call from her going, you're so nice and blah, blah, blah. I love it. That's strategy. I was a big believer in that as well. I was originating as well for 10 years. And I used to spend like, I would spend 20, 30 minutes easily researching the agent before I call them because I want that. I want that context are then the horses. Do they have a kid who plays at this university or whatever, right? So I have something or they have a new listing that I wanted to have a comment on. I'm like, holy crap, that's a, that's an awesome house. You know what I mean? I'd love to swing by and see it and yada da da da, all that kind of judge. Yeah. I think if you're just calling to to call, right? Like to throw crap against the wall, then that's going to suck. You're like, all phone burner. I'm going to dial the calls and bang them out in an hour and whatever. And I'm like, here's my rule. I do for it. So the quarter is 48 on Monday. I do it this way. I call 48 on Monday. Every loan partner I have has to call 20. So they have to do half the work that I have to do if you want to be on my team, right? And so now we're calling, you know, 150, 60 agents, whatever, right? And you're not going to reach everybody in whatever. The rule is, can't be in front of your computer when you're making the calls. Gotta be in a different room. So you can't take your email, text, none of that stuff. Gotta be away. We have a form. It's called the mortgage Monday form. And on there, I was going to have to show you, but it shows who they called, what they talked about and a fun fact. I want to know a fun fact about them. Why do I want to know a fun fact? So when I call them back, the next week, right? I know I was at the gym last week about whatever. Thanks for taking the time. It's up to her. And the agent's like, Oh, you remembered? No, I didn't remember. I got the newspaper in front of me. Now you're calling the same agents every week. So if you're calling your 10 that you're doing, this is all the time, then sure, sure. But no, we rotate. So Jen, for example, we'll call her 10 new agents, right? And then she'll come to me at that two o'clock meeting and be like, this one's good. She's going to like us call her next week. I see. Okay. Got it. I got it. And then on the big guns, I come in and call them the next week. And then you go for a meeting or a zoom or what? So then my husband pulls their numbers off core logic. We only really will try to do somebody, you know, something with somebody if they're doing 15 to 18 transactions a year by your side. Right? And then I'll try to do a coffee or zoom or something with that, you know. It's very interesting. You say that because I've interviewed a lot of people, right? In your category, your echelon of top producers in the country, Scottsman's guide people, all that stuff, right? And what I find, and I'm actually, I have MMI open here. This is this is usually what I like to do. What I find is most top producers have their source of loans spread across a wide patch of realtors. Like, you know what I mean? I'm looking at yours right here. Clearly, Romano Realty is your number one. Then you got Ricky Brody. Then you got, you know, you got Hasse and Joan and but then from then on down, it's like two loans, three loans total. So this whale concept, this hunting whale concept. Like, first of all, whales are already, right? They've got a lot of other fish feeding off of them, right? And they typically want something. But the biggest thing is that right now anyway, is that, you know, if you were to look at that two years ago, you would have probably saw 20 agents that mostly all of our business. We're now, it's like one, two, three, three, four, three, whatever. And that's because you got so many people attacking them, right? And in reality, right now, like if you were to Google my zip code as an example, there's one house for sale. Yeah. And so if you have a top realtor that had, you know, let's say Joanna Pat or, you know, Patty Setter that you stepped 17 to 20 listings, you know, now they have two. And so the facts are, I think in this market, you just need more realtors to do the same amount of business. Right. Because there's a hell of a lot more realtors slicing up the pie, right? Although the pendulum swinging and we might see that kind of return to more normal. I know here in Vegas where I live, we have 17,000 licensed, right? License. So that could include loan licenses in the board of realtors for 4,000 transactions. Yeah, it's like it's nuts. I think I read somewhere. I don't know if there's the fact or not. So don't want me to do this. But I think I heard or read somewhere that one third of all licensed loan officers right now got licensed in the last 24 months. Really? A lot of a lot of people rushing into the parade and they don't realize it's it's coming through town. You know what I mean? It's like, you got to catch it. Yeah, it's like, oh my gosh. And so I say that because like literally, I think in the last like 90 days, that two loan officers approached me like, hey, I want to, you know, get a job with you guys, blah, blah, blah. But they're like, you know, brand new. Like one dude hasn't even done a transaction before. And I'm like, you know, you know, yeah, I mean, look at I'm a big believer in you can write, achieve anything you've got the skills and the right mindset to do it. But it's funny because you know, we have my wife, whatever she's like, you know, maybe I should be her, maybe she should be a realtor. I'm just like, I don't know that you want to play that game right now. What does your wife actually do? She's actually a senior vice president for a technology company locally here in Vegas. She's been there 10 years and she's just a workaholic. So if you're listening, dear, I love you. I appreciate you. Well, you mentioned you guys have been married. How many years again? So we've been together 31 years. We've been married for 26 or seven, I think. All right. So you got me to be I'm coming up on 22 here in July. Oh nice. It's not heard of that. That's a thing anymore. You know what I mean? It's what? It's not heard of that people are married that long anymore. You know, it's really sad. You know what I mean? Well, like anything, it's work, right? It ain't easy. It isn't always the better roses. And you that's that's the secret though to success. I think in most things is you have to be willing to commit through it when it sucks, right? And go through the hard time and have this bigger picture and vision for where do you want to go? And there are definitely some dark moments and times in business and in relationships. But you just can't you can't ever make that decision to just throw in the towel, you know? Assuming my husband just said to me the other day, I'm in the kitchen cooking. It's 730 at night. He comes in and he goes, I got this great idea. I go, all right, right? And he's like a he's like a I and C personality, right? So I'm like, okay, what's your great idea? He's like, I think we should sit down and and and and and and and convers on what it is I really, really need from you and what it is you really, really need from me. And I was like, now we've been here 31 years, I was like, I think I pretty much have this idea down at this point. But I actually thought about what he said and I thought, what a great idea because it's constant communication and relationship change. For example, Kaji Kosi, I've been working with for years. Like I would say, I had to give a guess, he's probably going to kill myself that was listening to this. But I would say, you know, you know, six years, five or six years, right? Or so. And he used to be, we used to do a lot more business together, me and his brother, Byram and stuff. And, you know, and Byram now is using someone else. But my point is that it's like, what people need from you changes. Yeah. Right. So I thought to myself, wow, my husband literally just sat down like and came up with this like great idea that I didn't even think about. And now it was like, great idea, babe. Let's do that on Saturday. But tomorrow, my car is tomorrow. My brother doesn't ask them what they need from me now. That's such a good point. And I usually do those in the in January, right? And then the end of the year, kind of a Q1 planning. What are your goals? Right? I want to better like what's going on in your business. But that's also appropriate for right now in the market considering what's happening with this shift taking place. Very cool stuff. All right. So we covered a lot of bases here. Unfortunately, we are out of time. But I really, really enjoyed the conversation. But I didn't get to with the social media. Are you on social? I am. All right. Where do we find you? What's your favorite platform? So I'm old school, some Facebook girl, but definitely use Instagram as well. And I'm under Terry Santiago Parker with an eye. All right. Cool. And that's on both platforms. Yep. And I do a lot of video products of the week. I try to be as educational as possible on there as well as my beautiful grandchildren, of course, and and and boys. All right. It's real quick. Then I have time for one question. How you've a number of times you've you've referenced the whole I'm getting older, right? You came out and like you disclosed your age. What are that? Hey, I'm fifth or seventh. So I can get it. Have you found that to be a challenge pivoting to social media? Yes. I mean, I honestly just asked the girls like Tweet Skulls, like I don't know how to go and Instagram and look up certain things. Can you show me? Okay. And you know, honestly, because I feel like, you know, different ages, is Facebook, different ages Instagram. And now there's TikTok, which I'm not on yet, but I'm told that's my next journey. So look out for me on TikTok sometime soon. But, you know, I just hired a top producer, right? Top top producer named Joanna Valdes, does about 25 loans a month. Super talented. No, it was a crap. Awesome. Not on social media. I'm like, are you kidding me? Do you have any idea how much business I get from social media? It's unbelievable. I believe and I don't want to quote myself on this, but I believe it's like 18% of my my fundings. Really? Are these consumers realtor's both combination of the netches from you posting content, having a presence? Yeah. One person said to me, I had Roger, like, was one of my loan partners doing a product of the week for a while. And one of my rotors hit me up and was like, can you do them? Because I like him doing them. But I want to hear what you have to say. And I was like, well, I'm telling him what to say. But regardless, you know, it was cool to have somebody like give me feedback to say that they're actually listening and watching to the product of the week. And so I thought, all right, if I do a product of the week or at least a message, you know, whether it be motivational, whatever, then I'm going to get, you know, once a week on Mondays, I try to post them as much as I can. That's 52 times, you know? Right. Right. Wow. I'm going to have to check that out. Product of the week. That's very cool. All right. We'll put links to your social Facebook Instagram in the show notes. And that isa, I can't thank you enough. Appreciate it very much. It was so nice meeting you. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to, you know, do this for the first time. It was super cool and not what I expected. You're awesome. So hopefully we can stay friends and stay connected. I love that. Sure. I got to come out with Philly. Yeah. All right. So listeners, hey, if you like this episode, you know what to do. Leave us a review. We appreciate you tuning in and we will see you on the next one. Hey, thanks for tuning in to this episode of the mortgage marketing radio podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember if you like this episode, please leave us a review that helps us reach more people and bring more good value and content to you, our listeners. And then don't forget, if you are a loan officer who wants more agent referrals in less time, be sure to check out the mortgage marketing pro membership at mortgage marketing dot pro and learn more about our turnkey system of agent classes that puts you front and center of your local real estate agents, attracting agents instead of chasing them and getting agent referrals like clockwork every single month, just like Kerry Cobb, who her first year in the business with closing over 75 loans, achieved 40% of those 75 loans exclusively from agent classes. And if you want to learn how she did it, now you can do it too. Once again, go to mortgage marketing dot pro and I'll see you over there. Thanks for listening. Bye for now. 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 seeds, 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 8 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.