Mortgage Business Dried Up? How John Farrell Expanded Out-of-State, and Closed $100M

Hey there, it's Jeff Zimper, host of the Mortgage Marketing Radio Podcast, and I am coming back from my recent trip to Europe. If you follow me on social media, you may have seen me posting some of the trip that I recently made celebrating my wife and I's 25th wedding anniversary. It's a big milestone. It was a big trip. My first time across the Atlantic over to Europe, and it was absolutely incredible. We started in Paris, and then we made our way down to Axe and Provence. We made our way down to the French Riviera, Monaco, Nice, and Sandra Pay. And then after that, we continued on to Italy and spent several days in Venice and then finished up in Lake Colmo. And I have to say, it was restorative, relaxing, refreshing, and I really thoroughly enjoyed it. And I'd be curious to know if you guys listening. If you've been to Europe, I'd love to hear your feedback. So feel free to jump in, over and connect with me on Instagram, say hi. Let me know you did go to Europe, Italy, France, whatever. What was your favorite part? I'd love to swap notes on that. And I'm going to have an upcoming episode where I do a story on my visit to the Marano Glass Factory in Venice, where we had to take a boat over. Here's a quick little side note is just the week prior to us being there. Tom Brady was in there spending a lot of money buying some pretty cool Marano Glass. If you don't know the Marano Glass story, check it out, look it up online. It's amazing, it's world famous, it's hand-blown, works of art, glass. And yeah, we did pick up a couple of items. And so I will be sharing that story on an upcoming episode. But today, before we get into my special guest, what you're going to hear from in a moment, and I want you to make sure you stick around, because today we're going to be talking with John Farrell, who last year did over a hundred million dollars in 2024, a difficult market. And so we're going to unpack how John did that, his book of business, sources of business, and so forth. So before we get into that, though, I do want to share with you something I haven't done in a while, but I'm bringing back wins of the week. That's right. You want to know what's working today's market. Well, I can tell you what's working is what always works. And that is the fundamentals. And a success story I wanted to bring with you from one of our members in the My Asian Classes community, who is executing well on the fundamentals. Look, there are lots of bright shining objects you can chase. There are lots of things you could do to quote unquote, be successful, succeed and get engagement, get referrals. One of the things, one of the playbooks we know that works is getting in front of your one of the primary sources of referrals at scale. And that's real estate agents. And so shout out to Channing Moore. So Channing taught our class, which was leveraging seller concessions, which by the way, I don't know if you saw that stat that was roughly a 30-ish 40% of properties, I believe, around the country had some form of a seller concession on it. So it's a hot topic and agents need help with seller concessions. Your clients need help with seller concessions. How about you leverage your knowledge in a way that puts you in front of these people at scale. So attract agents to want to work with a subject matter expert like you helped facilitate deals, help make deals happen by leveraging your expertise in seller concessions. Now what Channing decided to do was take our done-for-you-turn key class where we do everything for you, the PowerPoint, speaker notes, the train-the-trainer videos, the emails, the tech marketing messages, you name it soup, did not we do it. And Channing said to date, it has been the best class that has generated the most referrals for him. And all of the referrals he received were from productive, underlying productive agents that he had been wanting to work with for some time. And what did he do? He followed our proven system in plan. We're sending out the invites for contacting people on social media for making warm calls to real estate agents and you put butts in seats and he got referrals on demand. Now, I don't know if that's for you, but if it's something you'd like to learn more about, we may or may not be a fit for you, but here's the way you learn more. You schedule a call with me. That's right, me personally. You go to the link in the show notes that talks about my agent classes or you right now go over to mortgage marketing.pro, then you grab a time on my calendar. So we can unpack a little bit more about what we do here at my agent classes, show you the classes, show you how we automate everything. So it's done for you, share our community and just share with you some of the success stories and results that is happening every single week in the country for loan officers. Once again, go to mortgage marketing.pro or check out the link in the show notes. Okay, so back to my special guest in just a moment. You're going to hear my conversation with John Farrell out of Newport Beach, California, Orange County, California, where I originally cut my teeth in 2003 as a mortgage professional. In this episode, you're going to learn three things. Number one, how John leverages his book of business and strategic financial advisor partnerships for consistent referrals. Number two, why expanding beyond your zip code might be your next best move. And number three, how being curious, not just competent can transform your business relationships. And there's something really interesting will unpack how one viral Instagram reel led to nine million views. And what that means for mortgage pros like you looking to grow through social media. So if you're ready to stop chasing leads and start attracting them by being more of you, stick around, listen to this episode of mortgage marketing radio. John, welcome to the show. What's up Jeff. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks for Yeah, I covered out a time of your busy, busy schedule to be here. You're in my old stomping grounds, Orange County, Newport Beach area. I now live in Vegas, but spent like 30 some odd years in Southern California. It is a very competitive market for mortgage professionals. Would you agree? Extremely, extremely competitive. I think this was the mecca of mortgage in the early 2000s. If I'm not mistaken, I think every big mortgage company was in Orange County. So every, everyone in their mother was in mortgage. So how do you stand out in a sea of noise? Just by being myself and hopefully people are attracted to it and there's going to be some people that don't really like John. And so that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, in Orange County, right, we've got it's last I checked roughly three million people live there. Thousands of transactions per month. Obviously, we're in a bit of a different, I mean, Orange County's different. I call it a transaction recession. What are you seeing out there, by the way, for your market? I'm seeing houses go quick that are priced right and other homes where they're shooting for the stars are sitting and then price reductions. And you know, Jeff, you know, too, like those price reductions play into the mindset, the consumer and the media more than ever. So educating our clients on why they're seeing price reductions and you know, and educating them on it doesn't mean the market is actually moving down. But yeah, no, it's been like, you know, we just we had clients actually not here in Orange County, but up in the Pasadena area right by the fire zone. There were 36 offers on this particular house. So why? You know, it's the houses that are priced right or really, really desirable or extremely competitive. They're moving. Yeah. So you mentioned Pasadena. For those listening, they might not be aware. So you're a new port beach area, lovely area. And then Pasadena is probably about a two hour drive, right? With traffic. Maybe. Depending on a good day, on a good traffic day, three hours. Yeah, I would say like minimum two hours, unless you're leaving it in the morning. Right. Exactly. So it makes me curious then, how you is that a one off or do you step far outside of your general backyard to get business? A lot of our business comes from my book of business, being in the business since, you know, early 2000 or maybe in 1999. So we actually we were licensed in all 50 states. In December, we closed 15 units. Seven of those units were outside of California. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So how does one? So this is an interesting conversation, right? Because go go back to that transaction recession kind of headline. I mean, there is kind of overall volume is down. And I'm seeing some loan officers that have been around a while like yourself and others start to expand their footprint, whether it's within their existing state or outside. Was that some kind of conscious decision you made or like what was behind that whole expansion thing? I mean, if there was a decision that it was made, it was, and I'm losing track of dates, but the inventory levels at one point here in Orange County, I think it was like 1700 active listings. And I looked at it and I'm like, okay, well, this isn't going to work. You know, there's we're in the mecca of the mortgage business. There's just a lot of loan officers here. It's extremely competitive. So I reached out to some agents and other states that we had worked on transactions previously and just said, hello, you don't remember me, but so that helped a little bit. And then obviously, you know, we have a lot of clients here in Newport or in Orange County who have kids that are going to college and they want to buy their kids a smaller home versus rent or live in that, you know, in different states. In different states, yeah. So and then a lot of investor, we have a lot of clients buying multi-units in Indiana, Ohio. Yeah, exactly. All right. What is your number one source of business? I would say my book of business would be number one and then realtors and and we've got two or three really strong financial advisors that send us clients consistently. So my book of business, you mean like past clients all that? That's clients, yeah. Okay, great. So you're pretty proactive then with farming that? I can be better. I mean, if I mean 100% be better at it, you know, I would love to say that I'm the best at doing that, but there's there's a lot of room for improvement. But yeah, we, you know, we we have different processes that we've integrated into our system the last since COVID that have been keeping us top to mind, but I could definitely be better. Is Homebot one of those? I know I got the shirt on. We're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Homebot. Homebot is one of those. Homebot's one of one of the generic ways I would say it's not really a personalized way, even though I've done some videos on there, but we've got it. I use I switched from June go my CRM from June go to Bonzo and Bonzo has been actually really helpful in creating campaigns, post closing campaigns, or hey, I haven't talked to you in a long time campaigns to past clients, so that's been helping out too. We're just picking up the phone is like a good a good thing to or sending a quick text. Well, and I want to go back to something you alluded to a moment ago of like, you know, could get better all the time because what people don't know is before we hit record, you know, is that you did in 2024, $108 million. And one of the things you said to me is, you know, the inner critic was the voice you used, right? Which was like that whole voice of like shit man, you can get better. What about this? What about like that knowing little thing, right? And I just want to point it out to everybody listening and acknowledge you for the, I guess the humbleness, right? And the willingness, because you know, when you get so high, like if you think you're all that, that's when you start to fall, right? When that that, what do you call that word? The pride takes over. Yeah, that's when it starts to undermine. Yeah, I was sharing with you, Jeff, like I'll be quick on the story, but when I was younger, I think my parents really, I love my parents, they didn't give me much, but my first job was picking up cigarette butts at a 7-Eleven in Kirkland, Washington. I was making like $2.75. That's a job? No, that was a job. And everyone was smoking back then. So you could imagine the part of the 7-Eleven destroyed. And I'd carry a five gallon bucket, pick up cigarettes. By the time I thought it was done, there was another 100 cigarettes on that ground. But I hated that job so much, but then there was this Italian restaurant. I think it was Tony Moroni's or something in Kirkland, but I saw these waiters and waitresses and they're all dressed up nice. And I'm like, man, they're making a lot of money. So I went to the restaurant and I'm like, hey, I really want to be a waiter here, no, like do you have experience? And I'm like, no, I'm only like 15 years old. I'm like, well, no, you can't do that. You can be a dishwasher though. So I was a dishwasher. The amount of just like trash, I got noodles and everything else. These waiters and waitresses disrespected me so much. And I was just trying to hustle back there and I would get out of there and I'd be all marinara sauceed out. So the reason I share that with you is because when I finally made it to a waiter, the new dishwasher I respected so much and I would treat them like they were a human being. I wasn't throwing stuff on them and all that. I think that kind of carried through into my later years. So like, 100 million to me, it doesn't really mean much. I'm still the dishwasher, you know? Then what about this business? What keeps you engaged, passionate, right? Kind of getting after it? Well, you know, I mean, after all these years, you're not jaded. What's firing me up? And to do what you're doing? I mean, I have three kids, two in college and a preschooler. So life, baby, there you go. Yeah, that's definitely our motivator. I don't know, I just love people. You know, I love working with people and I shared with you the word that stuck with me this year. I'm good friends with Jeremy Forse and he gave me advice on like, he'd choose one word every year. Like, I know, I think last year his word was impact. This year for me, it was curious, be curious. So curiosity has really helped me. Does that help you think with meeting people, whether they're potential clients for for all partners? I think so because it's not you're not coming off. Like if you go to a broker preview, right? I don't know if broker previews exist everywhere, but where the realtors are showing that they're new listing, you know, you used to walk in and you're like, I mean, I was guilty of this too. Hey, we got 30 year fixed rates at 2.375% and they're like, Yippee Kaya, you know, get out of my house. So I think just having curiosity and being curious in the top of your brain gets you to come off differently and it's not all about making a sale or what can this person do for me, but it's getting to know them and finding out what problems they have and, you know, eventually being a solution provider to them. So, and you know, sometimes it doesn't work. I mean, sometimes they tell me to get out of the house and that's totally cool, but for the people that Joe with it works. Give me a sense if you could and I know this has changed over time, but obviously, a loan office or listening right now is probably a lot of people are in the place of, you know, they want to grow their business, right? They want to add units. And I don't know if you, you know, you said Mission Jeremy. For sure, you're probably in certain, certain groups and coaching and you have conversations with people, but let's just say today, I'm an LL, I've been in the business three years, right? And I need to grow. Like, what would you advise or what would John do today? I would have more conversations. Okay. Make more phone calls from them. I go out. Whatever you like to do, like I, uh, uh, the pictures of them, I used to love riding motorcycles. I don't need more of my wife to push to that, but, uh, whatever, whatever, you know, if you like playing pickleball, get involved with pickleball because whatever you love doing, you're going to meet people that have similar interest and you'll enjoy, uh, having conversations with them and, you know, I love working out now. So I'm at the gym. Well, everyone at the gym knows I'm in mortgage, not that I'm pitching mortgage to them, but they know that I do that. And from that, I've had, you know, people come out from the gym and they're like, Hey, John, we're buying a house or we want to buy a house. We don't know what to do. So my, I think my advice would be whatever you enjoy doing, like get out in that community and, and just start asking questions, talking to people. Okay. Um, give me, uh, do you have anything that's more, um, scheduled, such as give us a glimpse into how you structure your activities, your, your biz jet, biz, Jen, biz development generation activities. What does that look like? Well, if I, if I'm being totally honest, my day is still ADD, like it's chaos. So, uh, so, but I do, I do make sure that I set aside at least in a hour and a half a day of reaching out to past clients or referral partners, um, and, and, you know, generating sales and business and leads. Um, I think that's important. It's, you know, it's hard to do day and day out, but I would definitely have conversations with, you know, if you're getting back to your question, if you're brand new in the business, um, you've gotta be, you've gotta be out there, uh, or if you've closed, you know, your three years in the business, you've got closed transactions, reach out to those agents, whether on the listing side of the buy side, say, Hey, Mr. Mrs. So-and-so, you know, I close that deal for you a while back. I want, you know, I wanted to, you know, connect with you and, um, yeah, follow up with your book of business, because your book of business is going to be your biggest true leaders. If you're doing a, you know, if you're going above and beyond with them, they're going to be the easiest ones to get new business from. Hey, are you tired of cold calling realtors and feeling like you're getting nowhere with my agent classes? You don't have to chase agents anymore. We hand you a done-for-you system of ready-to-teach presentations, plug-and-play marketing, and even 200 producing agents to invite, so you can double your agent referrals in 90 days or less. Plus, you'll get weekly coaching and a community of loan officers sharing exactly what's working right now. Here's a quick win from one of our members. Been part of my agent classes for a little over a year and totally changed my business. I agree with at least 25 percent, and that was during a pretty down market, and have only grown every single month that I've kept doing it. Community is great. Jump to the Friday calls. It's awesome. Have fun with it. Teach as many classes as you can. Just do more. Do better. Are you ready to stop chasing and start attracting agent referrals on demand? Book a call at mortgagemarketing.pro or hit the link in the show notes. Now back to our show. Tell me, let's transition a little bit if you don't mind. I want to, you kind of really stress, you've got two or three financial advisors that are significant referral partners for you. Makes me curious, what type of firms, because are they at? You know, in a minute, are they like boutique firms? Are they the big? They're not at Merrill Lynch. Not at Merrill Lynch. Not at the other one. The big insurance guys. I can't remember right now. Big insurance. Northwestern. Northwestern. Northwestern. No. So they're at boutique. Seth Davis is one of my biggest ones. He's actually out of Denver, and I met him on a transaction in LA for a big celebrity at the time who doesn't use him anymore, because he's made so much money. But we had a really good conversation during that transaction, and then he's been referring us business ever since. The thing that he likes and that my other financial advisor likes is that not that we use mortgage coach, they don't like, oh, I use you because of mortgage coach, but we use mortgage coach when talking to their clients because a lot of clients will want to put more down. So we're looking at, well, maybe if you put less down, but keep the money invested with R&B capital is one of them. Here's how your network would look versus putting larger amount down. So we're just having those conversations versus just like, here's your rate, here's the payment. You're being an advisor. Yeah. And we're also it's we're having conversations with clients that don't have advisors, and if they don't, and and they meet the requirements of these particular fAs, we're connecting with them. You know, you're doing the thing. Go ahead, sorry. Oh, no, I was just going to say like, these particular network clients, like they're yeah, they're big. But I would highly recommend getting if you're new to get to know some other financial advisors that have been in the business maybe three to five years because they're going to take on a smaller network client. And you can you guys can grow together and then you know, you guys could give them social media and talk about how to grow your network and like, you know, everyone wants to grow their net worth and they want to make more. So I don't know, financial advisors though are a great source resource press. Are you are you actively, you know, there's there's I'm sure a lot of people listening are familiar with this script perhaps, which is, you know, on the 1003, right, you're asking them, do they have a financial advisor, right, et cetera, looking to get that connection. Do you do that repeatedly not as much, not as good as Ryan Grant can do it, but we're doing it right. Yeah, and we're we're we're doing yeah, it's definitely coming up. Because that's being curious, right? Right. Yeah, like yeah. So we're you know, where I really like to do that better is on a lot of our clients have trust and a lot of clients don't have trust and they don't really know enough about trust. Connecting with the trust attorney is if you can, I think that's a really viable source. I haven't had this success of collecting with a trust attorney that's been reciprocal in sending us business, even though I've sent them business. But I don't there's so many there's so many avenues you can go down with getting new referral sources. Yeah, it comes down to the activities. It makes me curious, have you ever done like events, classes, lunch and learns that type of stuff either early on or on going? I don't like lunch and learns. I don't know why. Yeah, but I will tell you we hosted a or I hosted at there's 15 agents that came to my house and I had this trust attorney, this trust attorney, that trust attorney at the house and that was really beneficial. But the cool thing with doing it at my house was everyone was kind of casual. It wasn't like a network mixer where you're everyone's uptight and all that. I was like a very cool setting and that I do like doing and in fact that I need that I have on my goal to do four of them this year because it just provides a different setting than a lunch and learn. What would you say and I know this is all off the cuff. So I apologize if you feel like you're being put on the spot for everybody listening with this was not rehearsed or planned. But any idea of roughly what your balances of purchase to RIFI is? It's I'm in October of last year. We obviously probably did 50% RIFI purchase but I'm predominantly right now in 98% purchase, 2% RIFI. Yeah and I mean if that says anything to what I could do a better job at is probably reaching out to my book of clients that need to do debt consolidation and that would lead to more business and help them out. But majority of our clients are jumbo too. So when you're talking to clients that have 50,000 in credit card debt and they've got a million to note at 2.875 or 8. Doing a blended rate analysis is not going to be very beneficial. So we're going to allow certain mortgages right now too. Interesting. Okay let's transition a bit to social media now because I know you're pretty active on social, your Instagram we'll link it up in the show notes but it's John E. Ferrell if I'm correct. Yeah. You're pretty active with posting some of your reels have just taken off. I'm curious like what would you want to share about your journey on social so far and any commentary in terms of getting business there you know for example. Yeah well Neil from forward I don't know if you know Neil Dean rest. Sure. And part of his mastermind he's really helped me out because I don't know back in the day I would when I get on social media I'd probably hit record 10 times and delete delete delete delete. I wouldn't show my tattoos there's a lot of insecurities. You wouldn't be you. It wouldn't be me. Yeah in fact you can look at some of the videos or I look at the videos oh my god it's not me. I made a commitment a year and a half ago I think maybe two years ago to stay consistent on it and it's it has been a game changer. I haven't figured out how I know it's really helped me with warm introductions or warm yeah introductions to agents that you know I might not have known and I have gotten some clients out of it. All I can share with you is you got to stay consistent and be yourself and you know what the whole social media thing is at least in the mortgage arena it is changing like they don't want to the consumer the viewers they don't want to see that bunch of edited stuff that's really fancy. Yeah they like the authentic stuff now in fact I've been like posting more probably more stuff like I just had a colonoscopy last Friday and I posted the like me doing the the pre drink stuff and drinking it and then right getting right out of the operation and I was high as a kite like flying and I wasn't making any sense but I can't get the amount of DMs I got from that was crazy so it's just you know it's a human connection with people so I you really have to you don't have to do it but you should be doing it these days and if you're not just that's awesome hit record and you know like just what you might think is stupid there's people out there that don't know that stuff and so you can impact one person and you know the reach on social media is great. Yeah so how much then it goes because if you know when people go to check out your Instagram you've got some some reals that are banging I know you know that you got one that's nine million views yeah 20 highest-ranked jobs and and so you know I've done a fair amount of studying and I could recognize why you're getting nine million views on that it's a pretty wide right audience target there yeah anything you want to share about your content strategy other than be real be yourself don't be overly polished but what about the actual you know topics and things like that are you trying to be you mixing up mortgage specific versus more broad what do you want to say on that yeah I think there's been an awareness at least the people that I I'm connected to on social that when you're do you're just doing mortgage you're you're you're really going to be only hitting a small a meeting you know there's only so many people looking out that are looking to buy at home right right what I what I've really seen is income people love income people like they love seeing anything income related out there that one in particular you're talking about is income related um and it also we purposely messed up on some of the numerical order of it my editor your illness and get people to comment yeah well my editor I noticed it and I'm like hey the numerical order is not right on this and I'm like hold on wait don't fix it because people will lose their crap and people lost their crap so there's a lot I like there's a lot of hate on it people are pretty evil actually but yeah I just don't care about that stuff anymore but you know it's like does that real do anything for me no I mean it's yeah it's I get you know I think it's coming close to 10 million it's cool that have one that went that big but it advice do something that you like if you like health post about health and then throw mortgage in there or if you like cooking like who doesn't like cooking like you could talk about mortgage while you're cooking pasta or whatever um whatever your you know figure out what your pillars are four pillars and and throw all that stuff in that'll really help your reach in your growth on social media pillars as in what family finance fitness that kind of stuff yeah so yeah mine's family because I have three kids I work out I mean I work out I'm it I'm kind of sick at the gym so I work out eight days a week seven days a week eight I'm joking and baby I'm there I'm in the gym every day it's something for me it's the it really helps me out with stress I hear yeah and then you throw obviously mortgage and then the other thing I really like is I love to say I'm perfect but I'm far from it and I've got you know a lot of what's the word I'm gonna use I like self-help stuff okay yeah so development yeah yeah personal development so I'm I'll throw some stuff in there that you know that's been helping me out with the inner critic that you and I were talking about um stuff like that so I'm I'm kind of the those are the the four things that I use and I'm kind of slowly I'm getting more comfortable on on doing some more vulnerable vulnerable stuff on social media which I think is helping because again if you're posting just mortgage you're you're not gonna grow much well speaking of vulnerable you did post some videos about your recent child birth oh yeah that's pretty vulnerable yeah that was uh that was homework that Neil gave me at the mastermind and yeah I was yeah I think I had a I had a couple drinks and then I went back to our room or I went back to my room I was supposed to do this thing I was sitting there crying for a long time and then watching the video and then posted it and I'm like oh my god what did I post that but you know what I actually I liked it and um it connected me with a lot of people I'll say very interesting okay um what do you focus on this year here we are entering April almost 2025 what what do you what's got your attention this year uh hitting 200 million doubling volume uh definitely yeah yeah no uh yeah obviously I mean 200 million I that is in my mind um but then also by the way how many transactions would that be sorry to interrupt you well my average loan amount is 983,261 so those the numbers I know that because it's on my affirmations in the morning uh oh nice I know I'm focused on that I'm also focused on uh I've got one assistant Lily who's the best in the business um we'd love to bring on another she's not she's my teammate she's not my she's my system she's my teammate uh we'd love to bring on someone else because she's actually starting to originate too she's Spanish so she's been getting really real involved with the um Hispanic community so we'd love to a goal is to bring on another assistant and then um yeah just working you know constantly refined processes and social media are you taking the loan apps yourself over the phone you got an online app what does that look like do I answer that one truthfully yes of course man yeah no we do it I don't I don't take them on over the phone we do everything so online you might have like a pre-call whatever right just call okay I'm gonna send you my my link yeah we have a pre-call the one game changer thing for me has been after we've done the pre-approval Jeff we're we're setting up a team's call we use teams where I am which is like Microsoft zoom pretty much uh and we're doing a strategy call and we're making sure that we're we're walking them through mortgage coach or um well mortgage coach and then kind of what's going on with the rate environment and then we're also we've sent out this questionnaire on you know it's very short on how could we make the call more impactful what they want to learn and that's been that's been a game changer for us as far as connecting with the clients and and really delivering a lot more value so those strategy calls are important versus just sending that pre-approval letter out and saying hey good luck yeah better for conversions are you running into um you got a lot of fence sitters and are waiting for rates to drop or whatever uh yeah we have some and I yeah I'm doing my best to educate them it's interesting it's top of mind you know you mentioned mortgage coach and I use both that and be it mbs highway and uh you know each of them have their own version of tools to demonstrate a cost of waiting you know with the equity appreciation and all that fun stuff even if the rates to come down a point um I just curious if you did anything like that for people listening and to your point about the strategy call I think that is a huge differentiator every top producer hundred million almost every okay I know nothing's 100 percent but uh I don't know of a highly effective I'll underline that word mortgage professional today that's not using some type of a visual scenario uh conversation to move people forward in the process yeah they we we use I I use mbs highway too there's so many tools on there we it's always better to show versus tell the clients if you're telling them it's kind of in one ear out the other but showing in them and they're in walking them through this and educating them and showing them data and information it it really takes maybe what might be you know an uncertain buyer in a crazy market not that they're going to be 100 percent certain but you're bringing a lot more certainty to that you know their decision making and whether or not they're going to get into the market so um we're using all those tools mbs highway uh mortgage coach my but can I give one plug yeah please go ahead okay so my buddy Sam made Sam made in originally Sam baby you know Sam hell yeah Sam and I talked last week we're talking again on Wednesday I know what you're going go ahead plug it Sam I love you dude Sam has created an app called home power uh for those of you maybe who have not used mortgage coach yet or any of those home power is kind of sorry Dave Savage another version of mortgage coach uh Sam created this home power app that is insane um but it will help you and it makes it very easy for you to walk your clients through options of uh you know looking at different purchase prices or loan products or FHA versus conventional um you for any originators that are not doing a strategy call if there's one thing you can take away from this start doing a strategy call whether it's on zoom or teams if they're clients or face to face I mean if you can do face to face that's even better but uh the tools and the resources we have at our hands to go out and really earn market share are I it's so much better than when I first got in the business so much better yeah hell yeah I mean I had mortgage coach when it was a CD that I had to buy and loaded on the laptop yeah it wasn't good sorry Dave 2003 that's when I entered 2003 country wide home loans orange county mission via the fast and easy oh yeah yeah mortgage coach is awesome it's for sure they're both awesome Sam's product looks great as well um okay cool so we've talked about your number kind of top sources of business which is uh your book of biz realtors and then these kind of two mega financial advisors you have that's awesome we talked about the activities which is surprise surprise fundamentals baby block and tackle like have conversations you stress to have conversations daily weekly like there's no wait a minute wait a minute John where's the magic wand the magic pixie dust that people want the easy button there isn't any good nine there at the magic buttons anywhere it's find your interest and go out and have conversations with similar people and you know uh work with people who you like you might be chasing an agent or a referral partner that is not a cool person and you want to work with them because they do big numbers don't what about all right let me let's try this what about early on in your career when you're building do you got to eat a lot of shit right uh just to be like okay i got a deal uh yeah i'm not going to say the agents name on here because i chased an agent forever and this guy stomped me to the ground beat me down it was the worst thing ever i looked back it was a good learning lesson i spent a lot of money bringing food to this person's open houses and all that when i barely had any money but i thought okay this is going to get me the business and i never got a deal out of that guy ever not nothing it's not him it just we shouldn't like it wasn't the right thing the lesson there are those is true colors like you know how somebody treats you it's kind of exemplary of how somebody's going to treat you yeah good pattern different no matter what the situation yeah pay uh pay to play it doesn't work for me so if you're clients saying i mean we'll have not clients real it or say hey listen i need to pay for zillie sorry i'm not your guy hey i have an event coming up um i want you to contribute to it well how many deals have we done well we haven't done any but if you contribute to it no i'm not your guy so good that's just how we standards yeah just there's someone out there that's getting the business don't buy your business don't buy your and know your worth like like know your worth like if you're doing a great job and you're busing your ass and you're helping facilitate that transaction um at a service level that is exemplary there's the word twice uh then you deserve to write hold yourself to a higher standard and who you work with and not put up with crap 100% and you're going to get those agents more business because you're follow-up system and you're plugging them consistently and they've got friends that are buying um that's worth a lot more than bringing standards platter to a broker preview yeah for sure all right well listen i know you're busy you got you got to double your volume this year so i got to let you go but um give us a shout out what is your Instagram account uh john e ferrell f-a-r-r-e-l if you have if anyone out there wants to chat you can always reach out to me uh you can google my name you'll see it online um i love helping people out especially newbies in the business so you can always reach out well there's definitely some nuggets we got from this conversation john i appreciate you're making the time and uh look forward to connecting with you soon then thanks jack appreciate you and listeners you know what to do if you like this episode hey leave us a review check out john's instagram link in the show notes if if you got like one idea at least or more from this conversation dm them let them know on instagram appreciate you guys tuning in see on the next one okay that's it for today's episode before we wrap up i just wanted to remind you about my agent classes you're proven system to double your agent referrals in just 90 days imagine never having to co-call again instead building real lasting relationships with top-producing agents who want to send you business with done for you presentations marketing automation weekly coaching it's all designed to make growing your business easier and fun so if you're ready to take control of your agent referrals and grow your income visit mortgagemarketing.pro or check the link in the show notes and while you're there don't forget to check out the success stories from other mortgage pros who've already seen incredible results thanks for listening and i'll see you on the next episode