The Referral Gap: Why Agents Still See You as a Vendor

And so in the question I asked loan officers is if there was a billboard in town and your picture was on and every realtor had to drive by that billboard every single day, how many realtors would recognize your face? Right. And it's usually 10, 20. Yeah. How many realtors you think you need? A lot more than that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so once again, scale your reach. I call it five mile famous. You need to become five mile famous in your backyard. Hi Jeff. What's up Rachel? How are you? I'm great. Um, thank you for this last minute. Hey, do you want to be in a podcast? Hey, you want to do it like in five minutes? Well, I can totally appreciate the bind. You know what I mean? I've been there before for sure. Um, and besides that, I mean, I was just like, uh, okay, I haven't been on a podcast in a while and you're, you're doing some good stuff out there. So I'm like, why not? Right. Well, and, you know, it's just funny because when you put stuff out there, like what happens? Because I was going to do a rerun and I was like, you know what? Let me just put some feelers out there and see who's available. And Katie, God love her, she was like, well, I'm just about to leave for this four-day trip, but maybe I could do it if my husband could come home early. I'm like... really it's okay it's fine but right she mentioned your name and i've been following you from afar for a while and uh And I'm like, oh, heck yeah, I love that introduction. Yeah, it's so funny, you know, in this world of what we do in this small industry, right? But then you come across like your show, and I'm like, I've never heard of your show. So I'm like, okay, well, I would love to give you some attention. If you're okay, I'll repurpose this posted as one of my shows and link up to your show. Absolutely. That would be great. And I have to thank you because, you know, I was just looking through some of your stuff. It looks like you've had quite the season that you've been in and has been posting and sharing authentically when a lot of people just want to post the highlight reel of life. Looks like you've been going through quite a battle. And I saw your most recent video. You're working out again. I'm like, look at this guy. And he's doing my podcast today. Like... Amen, brother. I appreciate that. Yeah, we all, it's interesting. You know, and I've seen you post on social and you seem to be really natural. Although I know behind the camera it feels differently. So you should know that for somebody who's watched you, it seems like you're very comfortable in front of the camera. Is that true behind the scenes too? You know, it's taken a long time to get here. My background is not in mortgage. I used to give voice and acting lessons to kids. Oh, wow. Well, that explains it. Yeah. I did a lot of voiceover work that was like not in front of the camera, but just in front of the microphone. And I think it's just funny when you can look back at your career and be like, how the heck did all this fit together? And then you're like, okay, I see it now. It all comes together somehow. Stepping stone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, to your point about the whole that that's actually an area that I've struggled a little bit of like, you know, I don't know for me and I don't know if it's the same for you, but I'm always like, you know, what do I post that's personal about my life? Yeah. And you're like, OK, cool. I got something that's pretty personal. You know, you kind of got to make a decision. What do I want to post? How much do I want to share? And it gave me the opportunity to embrace that and just say, OK, I'm just going to put it out there like this is real. This is what's happening. Yeah. And of course, as you would expect, people really take to that personal sharing quite a lot. Well, they do. And I feel like you're either someone who's just getting out of a big storm, going to be in a big storm, or you're in a big storm right now. That's just the human condition, right? It's so true. Nobody's got it perfect. And the people that are posting with, we all like to see it, the perfect Pinterest family and business is great and the lighting is just perfect all the time. You're like... I've come to realize that those are the ones that probably have it together the least. So I'm like, you know what? Here I am. This is it. I'm just going to fake it. That's why I did the garage thing the other day because I was just like, You share things that you value and that are important to you. So being healthy, physical fitness, even before cancer, was important to me. But I just wanted to share, yeah, little steps along the journey. And it's a real thing for me because I'm like, all right, man, I'm a lot weaker than I used to be. And like these little 10-pound weights – Hey, but you know what? I have a friend who was going through cancer a few years ago and she was a runner. And, you know, when that's taken away from you and, you know, I was just being lazy at the time. I wasn't working out. I wasn't doing anything. And she's like, do it for me for somebody who can't do it and really wants to. There's really no excuse. You know, like, like, think about it from that perspective. And I was like, wow, that that really hit home. Yeah, I really hit home. And, you know, I'm still dealing with some after effects. My voice is still not back the same. And that sucks because that's my moneymaker, right? I was just going to say, that's your moneymaker. Right? That's what my financial advisor said to me. He's like, oh, great. You get cancer with your frigging moneymaker, right? So I literally didn't talk for three months, I think, like straight. I didn't barely spoke. It was all just barely. So anyway, I got to do all this stuff to, like, try and bring it back. And who knows? But. You know, it's a journey for sure. And perspective. And I try and put it in the right light of, you know, when you think you've got a pad, right? I think of the guy with no arms and legs who's out there speaking on a stage, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But sure, that doesn't minimize, you know, your experience and what you've gone through. Because, yeah, I think... Many times when that's like our superpower, our moneymaker, you took the words right out of my mouth. I say that all the time. I'm like, this is my moneymaker. I'm a singer. I'm a talker. And take that away. And you have a little bit of an identity crisis. But in the same time, those moments can really teach you. Like I have a hard time being quiet, being still. No. And I feel like those are when the real lessons come. Did you experience that? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I actually told a friend of mine it was actually refreshing to not be able to talk. You know? Yeah. Like, literally, you can't. All I have is my little whiteboard or whatever. My wife, she's like, what did you say? Right? It was just like, that's why we got the whiteboard out. Yeah. And it was actually cool because it really trained me to... I downshift the energy, and now I still use this, now that I can talk, you know, for family situations or other situations where people might get amped up real quickly, or they want to respond so quick. And I'm just like, I'm just sitting calm. I'm just waiting and allowing and processing. You know, it's a new lane that I learned to stay in. Yeah. There's this line in Hamilton that's the talk less, smile more. Right. And I feel like that's such a lesson. It's been coming up a lot for me lately. So maybe I need to take that and receive it and just... Well, there's a time and a place, right? Because you have this gift of your voice and you've used it a lot of cool ways. But then, yeah, there's a time to be quiet, right? And I guess that's a bit of that stoicism, that wisdom, right? That's why God gave us two of these and one of these. I know. I know. That's so true. That's so true. So, well, we should have been recording this. I was. For once I was. Yes. I've learned over the years. Right. Like, right. Just hit record and edit later. Yeah. I mean, Joe Rogan style. I don't like to be like, okay. And we're starting. Cause all of a sudden I say we're starting and people turn into a totally different animal. Um, cause we've already started. So thanks. That's awesome. I love it. No, I love to be totally, I don't know if you, you know, you brought it up. So I, and it's like, you know, how much do you want to talk about this whole answer thing? But I did on a couple. That's something that unfortunately most people are going through. So let's. Yeah. So true. When you, when you go through it and you realize, oh my gosh, how many people either directly or indirectly, right. Are dealing with it at some level. I was just going to say, seeing as you already started recorded, I did share a couple of personal episodes where it was just like me, right? I'm just in front of the microphone and, okay, people want to know. And I was just like updating on what's going on, right? The journey and the radiation and the side effects. But yeah, this is how, you know, we're human. What's the old saying by Wayne Dyer? We're spiritual beings having a human experience. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I believe that. And I think that, you know, like I was saying, sharing the highlight reel, this is the real stuff. You know, yeah, we're in this mortgage space trying to carve out our niche or, you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is that you do. But this is the real stuff. This is the stuff that you take to bed every night that when you hit the, your head hits the pillow, it's like, okay, well, how, how have I affected somebody and how can I use junk that I've been through and, and, you know, have that human connection and relate your relatability factor to be like, Hey, you're not alone in this. Yeah. Wow. You, you, you, you're getting me all emotional. Yeah. Where do you want to go from here? Oh man. Well, we can be done. Right. Yeah. You got some good clips. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, talk to me about you've done a lot over your career. And and I love how you've used a podcast as a vehicle because I share that same that same passion of conversations and just community and, you know, relating to somebody. Yeah. So that's pretty cool that you've used podcasting as that vehicle to share your message. But you've been doing this for a while. I mean, you have kind of a big podcast. Actually, I'll say one more thing. Yes. I see your mortgage marketing radio, you know, the little icon everywhere. And when we were rebranding, I'm like, I want it to be kind of like that, but not like that. This guy's everywhere. And I was kind of annoyed. And then I'm like, oh, but he seems like a really good guy. So I can't be that annoyed. Yeah, that's really funny. I appreciate you saying that because maybe you can appreciate this or maybe somebody listening to this is, you know, you never know who is watching or catching your thing or seeing you in their feed. But I have to tell you, in real honesty, I don't I feel like I barely scratched the surface in terms of reach. you know, in this industry. I oftentimes use the word, like I'm the best kept secret in the industry, right? Because, you know, we're always looking at other people and like, wow, look at him, look at her, look at this big stage she's got, or this, you know what I mean? This big, she wrote a book or did, you know, we're always doing that comparison game. And I don't know that, As I say that out loud, it really sucks to do that to yourself because you just you're minimizing yourself. And here I'm hearing from you who up until four hours ago, you and I didn't know each other. Right. And now it's just like, no, I see you everywhere. And I'm like, well, maybe I am making an impact, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I know. It's pretty cool. I was actually just on a call with my new friend who actually introduced me to Katie Shive, who introduced us, Michelle Michael. And she's like, I love Jeff. Tell him I said hello. But isn't that just the coolest thing in this small pond of mortgage world that we're in? It's a small industry. It is. And it's just really cool when you're like, oh, yeah, I know that person. Yeah. Yeah. I want to run in circles with Jeff. With those kids, with the cool kids. And there's a lot of really cool kids in our industry. Yeah, there are. And I tend to be a little bit of an introvert, except when I'm forced to be an extrovert, such as a podcaster speaking on stage or something. But I'm perfectly happy just squirreled away in my office just working right on a project or whatever. But you have to, you know, as I always, when I was like training, teaching realtors, even loan officers, it's like you're in a business, you chose to be in a business that requires you to become well-known. You know, so you and your little introvert thing, like, yeah, you can't, you can't play that game if you really want to grow your business. Yeah. You got to get over that real fast. Yeah, exactly. Be willing to put yourself out there. So how has the podcast changed? It's been 10 years. Did I read it correctly? 10 years, over 400 episodes, interviewed hundreds of top producing loan officers. I mean, 10 years, if we look back, the game has changed quite a bit. But how has just that first episode of podcasting versus where we are now? Take me on that journey. First episode. First episode of complete fear and just like, I don't know what I'm doing. You know what I mean? I think I was doing it on Skype back then or something. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Probably. For those who remember Skype, I don't know. You know what's funny is when you say the game has changed, I'm one of those, so call me old school, but I'm one of those who believe it's, and this is true of a lot of things, it's changed, but there are a lot of things that haven't changed. Right? Like the fundamentals haven't changed. Yeah. And I don't think they ever will, even with AI and all this stuff. So some of the tools we use, some of the technology and the platforms, those change. And those are just tools. That's how I've always looked at them, whether it's email or AI or social media or whatever. It's just a tool in your toolbox. But it all comes down to bottom line. It comes back to relationships, connections. You know, how if we get into sales, your sales process, how good are you at communicating? I always come back to this. It's like if you want to make a change in your business or your life, there's only three things you can control your mindset, your skill set and your actions. You know, those are pretty much the only three things you can control. So which of those three can you get the biggest lever from based on what's going on in the market or your life right now? Hopefully that makes sense of an answer. Absolutely, because that's something we're talking a lot about in this podcast. And just in the space that we're in, sure, all of the fun tools and things that are out there, but to not get distracted because the number one thing that is your moneymaker, like we went back to, it's your voice, it's your relatability, that authenticity. And we've got three partners here. At HMA Mortgage. That's, you know, our foundation is HMA Mortgage. And Dave Holland's like, you know, the number one tool that makes me the most money. He's like, always holds up his phone. He goes, this, without this. Right. You're lost. That's your connection to the entire world right there. Yeah. All the tools and gadgets are great, and we want to leverage them. We want to use them. But if you don't know how to authentically relate to people, follow up with people, do what you say you're going to do, ain't nothing going to work for you. Well, I think about that in the context of AI. And, again, it's a useful tool. But I think, and you've probably seen this as well, What happens is I interact with some loan officers who wind up vibe coding these tools and building these different things. And that's all well and good. But my thing I always look through that through the filter of is if you're doing that during primetime hours during the day, and that's taking you away from what you just did, phone, conversations, et cetera, and now you're sacrificing conversations for vibe coding something or building some cool dashboard or whatever, right? I think that's very dangerous and very costly to your business. Do you do that at night, moonlight, on the side, weekends or whatever? But if you're not making connections with other humans who can send you business and you're sacrificing it for that, you are really digging yourself into a hole. Yeah, that's a really good takeaway for people listening because there are a lot of distractions, you know, from an ADD kid who, you know, is looking at the next shiny object. It is very hard to stay on track and just to be focused. But to take that little, that rule, create that rule for yourself that, hey, business hours are for connecting, relating, save the fun stuff for after hours. I think that would probably help a lot of people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, I've seen people, and I guess no shade on anybody doing this. No, not at all. But I mean, like, you know, I've seen some things lately where it's like, you know, I created a headshot generator for realtors, right? Or I created a thumbnail creator for realtors. Yeah. And the intention, it's just like why we're struggling so hard to be valuable with these little, you know, I don't know what to call them, these small impact things. I mean, when you think about it, if the type of realtor you're working with doesn't have their own updated headshot, right, that's a warning sign to me. I don't want them coming to me to create a hedge. And I know it's like, oh, I want to give them something valuable. It's a quick win. I'm like, yes, but there are other things you can do to have a greater impact on their business besides becoming some tech vendor who's like, hey, my LO sent me a frigging headshot generator. You know what I mean? There's a million of them out there on the internet right now. They don't need you for that. That's so funny you say that because how many times and actually this happened. This happened to me personally went and got new headshots, but the photographer manipulated them in such a way that I'm like, that doesn't even look like me. My kids are like, who's that? And like made my waist smaller, made other things bigger. And I was like, well, hold on a minute. I'll be using that for that anyways, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. I'm like, okay. I think that if you do not have the confidence to get a new headshot, sure, we all have things that we're insecure about. But look, if you don't walk into a store with a bag over your head because you don't want to see people, you shouldn't, you should have a real headshot. People need to see your face. They need to be able to know that when they see you based on your headshot, it's not like, wait, is that her? Is that him? Because that's the first calling card, right? People need to be able to know you. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Good point. You just hit on something that you said, vendor, to be a vendor. And I saw that on your website. And I really loved that idea of. Oh, yeah. Be out of the vendor zone. The vendor mentality versus the partner mentality. Yeah. Yeah. Vendor versus partner. Yeah, I really I feel like that's something that I was like, oh, yeah, okay, I can I can relate to that. Sure. So I put it in this context. If you visualize and picture a pyramid, right? And it's the realtor prospecting pyramid. And on the bottom of that pyramid is, of course, the largest section. The base of it is each stage of the pyramid is different ways that loan officers try and attract realtors to get deals. And on the bottom is the biggest section because most originators are approaching them as a solicitor, right? Right. They're calling, they're cold calling. They're just doing the whole, hey, let's grab lunch. I want to learn about your business. Like all that stuff that just is all about, I mean, it's couched with, I want to learn about your business, but let's just face it. No realtor really believes that. Right. And they know it's just a sales pitch. Right. Well, okay, so that's stage one. When you're out there, you're building, you're hustling, you're trying to get your deals. I understand you got to do whatever you got to do, right? So I'm not here to argue does cold calling work. I'm here to just present another way, which we'll talk about when we get to the third section. The second tier on the pyramid is vendor. So you've broken through, your hustle got you some deals, but the problem is you continue to approach realtors from the product and price position. Like, you know, here's my DSCR. Here's my all this, right? My self-employed, you know, no tax reports and all. You know, everything, you know, products and pricing here. Are I closing record time? And do you want to work with a vendor or a partner, right? Right. Everyone prefers a partner because there's a different meaning already. So what happens is, is between the stage of vendor and partner, which is the next stage up from vendor, there's what I call the referral gap, right? And the referral gap exists is because you haven't done anything out of the norm to move to that next stage from vendor to partner. You're still relying on price and products. You're still relying on close times and turn times. And by the way, I'm not saying those aren't relevant and don't have their place. They do. But everybody does that. So if everybody does the same thing, it no longer holds any value. It becomes a commodity, right? Yeah. So when I work with loan officers, what I say is let's leapfrog from solicitor and vendor cross the referral gap by showing up in the conversation, whether it's online or off, with the perception of I'm already a partner and a peer. And the way you do that, in my world anyways, is how I built my business too, is you lead with education. So there's a variety of ways that that can show up in the real world. You can post educational content online. You can share resources and tools with real estate agents that actually make an impact on their business online. the way I tend to lead with is by hosting educational classes, events and workshops for realtors, because that is the one to many approach. So instead of having one meeting with an agent, we have one meeting with 10 agents or 20 agents, right? And now you have an hour of a captive audience showing up and sharing, facilitating, facilitating something of value to the real estate agent, which is usually a problem that they want to solve. For example, right? helping them optimize their Google business profile, helping them understand AI, teaching them about seller concessions, teaching them about the cost of waiting. You know, the topics are endless. And if you're good at social media, by the way, teach them how to do social media, you know? So when you show up like that, not only do you scale your reach and you multiply your effort, because it's one to many, What happens is you differentiate yourself because you're not really even talking about product. You're showing up helping to solve problems. And so the resistance goes down, the trust goes up. And when you get to the ask of like something like this. Hey, you probably already have a lender and I'm not here to disrupt that situation whatsoever. I, the reason why I teach a class like this here today is because I believe in being a partner versus a vendor. How many of you here would prefer to work with a partner versus a vendor? Everybody's like, yeah, I like partners. Great. To me, what a partner is, is a partner helps you solve problems. And today is just one example of how I help my partner solve problems. Today, we're going to talk about boom X, right? And then you get into it at the end, something like, Hey, did I demonstrate the difference between a vendor and a partner today? Yeah. So if you're open to it and you want to have a conversation about how we can further help you solve this one big thing, you want a big idea. You got here today. Hey, grab a time on my calendar. Here's a QR code. Right. They grab 15 minutes for a Zoom conversation and it's a two step. Right. So you've got them in. They've they've trust you now. You've built rapport and you go to that next step, which is the yes is then become really easy because you didn't show up and pitch. You showed up and just poured into them. And then last stage, by the way, top of the pyramid is eventually you get to leader and mentor where you're a critical asset and part of their team. Oh man, so much to unpack there. I love all of that. I love being able to, the idea of being the thought leader and having them see you as the thought leader versus the vendor. I mean, rates change or you're right. It's turned into transactional. It's a commodity. And as soon as something changes, there's no relationship there. They're going to leader, mentor mentality is so smart. And it's not rocket surgery. And I do mean rocket surgery. Rocket surgery might be my favorite thing, right? We don't need to reinvent the wheel. This is simple stuff. But a lot of times we try to skirt around that and try to find a new way that's easy, simple, and make AI do it. But AI can't take... take that over. And I also think that's really smart, Jeff, because of like, almost like a herd mentality. You know, when you get a bunch of people in a room, and one person says something, then another person says something, they're feeding off of each other and sharing in this experience. And, and it's like, they want to be the one to win. Well, no, I want to be the one to win. And I want to be it. So there's so much going on there of having people Yeah. Not just a one-to-one meeting. Of course, you're killing more birds with one stone. Yes, but I think it's way beyond that. It's letting them create their own relationships. And let's face it, realtors love to be in the same room with each other to be in the know, see what's going on. But yeah, there's something about that shared experience that just feels like community. And I think everybody really is searching for more community. Right. Especially in today's AI world. Yeah. You know, IRL in real life is coming back in a big way because that's the only time we know it's real. So all those types of things, in-person events are coming back in a big way. People want that human connection and you can be the leader of that, you know, in your local market. Yeah. So this is something that you really coach the loan officers to, to get behind and to do consistently. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I've been doing it for a decade pretty much. Yeah, so I have loan officers who work with me, and they get this complete platform of turnkey classes and content ready to go. And we take them through a cohort of like six weeks or whatever. That's great. And at the end of that, they get in front of a bunch of agents. They get meetings. They get referrals. Another thing that happens too is when you think about – Going back to the pyramid. And so, so I asked law officers all the time, do you need more agents or better agents or both? And 90% of the time, everybody says both. Right. And so then the question always comes back to you, because I did this as an originator. I started in 2003 before the internet kids, but. Tell us what was that like? Yeah. What was that like before? Did I have a smartphone then? If I did, it was a Blackberry. But yeah, it's like we need to scale our reach, right? We need more agents and better agents. So then what's your process to do that? So the law of large numbers comes into play in your favor with this, right? Because are you cold calling you want, but nobody really enjoys cold calling, right? I mean, and it's not a very ROI activity for the amount of output versus the amount of return. Sure. I don't like to work like that. I like to work in a leveraged environment. The other thing, though, too, is when you talk about personal brand and brand building and local market awareness, it's kind of like this. Remember that movie, perhaps, I Love You, Man, with Paul Rudd? Remember that at all? I had Jason Segel. I remember the name. And I, oh, Jason Segel. I do. Yes. Yeah. So he was a down and out realtor in LA, Paul Rudd. And, you know, they're both Rush fans and they go see the Russian. Anyway, this character, Jason Segel, winds up befriending Paul Rudd. And Paul Rudd's down and out and, you know, really depressed because he can't get any business as a real estate agent. And so unbeknownst to Paul Rudd's character, Jason Segel decides to take out a bunch of billboards around LA. Yeah. And in all these crazy photos, right? Like he's in the frigging thong standing there. And then he's got the gun, like James Bond, secret agent, all over. And Paul Rudd is driving around town. He's just like... he doesn't, he's like, Oh my gosh, I can't believe he's like embarrassed. He's like, I can't believe anyway, he gets back to his office and his phone is ringing off the hook, right? Because all of a sudden now he's everywhere. And so in the question I asked loan officers is if there was a billboard in town and your picture was on and every realtor had to drive by that billboard every single day, how many realtors would recognize your face? And it's usually 10, 20. How many realtors do you think you need? A lot more than that. So once again, scale your reach. I call it five mile famous. You need to become five mile famous in your backyard. Yeah, owning your zip code is a big thing that we're talking to our loan officers a lot. I would love to know if any loan officers out there have put out a billboard of somebody in their undies or just ridiculous posts. I think that would be brilliant marketing. You get attention. You sure would. You'd get something. Yeah. But yeah, it's that kind of quote unquote stop the scroll, right? When everyone's doing the same thing on AI and they're putting things into chat GPT or Claude or fill in the blank and it's giving the same output, the same kind of graphics, the same kind of response. Well, then we just have AI talking to AI on social media and there's nothing social about it. Right. The same fire. Oh, we've seen those lately. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I know. Don't get me started. No, but I love that. I'm going to have to watch that movie again. It's been a long time, but I definitely remember that scene. And yeah, that's a great takeaway. Like what are you doing to just differentiate yourself, get yourself out there more at bats? Absolutely. Yeah. All comes down to your value proposition. Like We know it's not going to be price. So price set aside, this is on the realtor side. Why should I choose you? Is it because you close on time? Please don't say that loan officers. Loan officers listening, don't tell me you close on time. I'm sure if you don't close on time, it's not helpful, but it's sure not a differentiator, you know? No, no. Um, I'm sure the, the people that you've worked with over the years, um, you know, you've had some really cool success stories and I know from the coaching side, it's, it's gotta be great to, to see somebody that has that full potential. And then you're like, come on, let's just unlock this and let's, let's, let's get you out there. Um, I mean, I'm not looking for specific, specific examples, but maybe some specifics of somebody who's doing X, Y, Z. And you're like, if you were to just take it a little further or just, is there a different situation for everybody? Or do you see the same kinds of things that people are doing that if they were to just get out of their own way, they could hit it out of the park? I don't know if that makes sense. I think that's often the case, even with myself included, if I could just get out of my own way or, you know what I mean? We have our own self-talk in our head. So I think that's a constant thing. We're battling against that. That's why I think it's important you get around the right rooms as well. Get to surround yourself with the people who maybe are a few steps ahead of you. Yeah. You know, and you can kind of draft their success, you know, kind of like the Indy 500 does. They draft the person behind them to pull them forward. Yeah. Yeah, I think being in the right rooms, that's why going to events and seminars, getting coaching or whatever can always be helpful for you because it's so often we can't see it for ourselves because we're too close to it. And that's why we need some third party set of eyes to look at our situation and go, no, like I see you better than you see yourself right now, you know? Yeah, so much of that. And I would just say, like, I mean, I've definitely got people who've come into my world and, you know, we're talking about people presenting in front of the class, right? Speaking and things like that. So some people get wrapped around their head with that. But once they do it, they find out, like, you don't need to be a subject matter expert. You're just a facilitator. You're just sharing information. And the dynamics change of how people see you when you're presenting from the front of the room, for example, you know? Yeah. Yeah. You're now seen as a leader. I love that because these are things that people can start doing right away. You know, if you're a loan officer listening and maybe have thought about doing these things, it's like, well, it's holding you back. It's holding you back. Just I think starting can always be the hardest part. I heard someone say one time, Jeff, the heaviest weight at the gym is the front door. I was like, dang, that's good. That's so good. But I think that applies to everything that we do. Just getting started and getting out of your own way can be the hardest part. And I'm talking to myself, too, and all different aspects, right? I mean. Yeah, that's why you have to invest in yourself. You know what I mean? It's a cliche. Everybody knows that. But I remember years ago, I got a chance, I don't know if you know who Jim Rohn was, but years ago I used to work for Tony Robbins before I got in the mortgage business, but this is going back decades. And Jim Rohn was Tony Robbins' mentor. Yeah. And so I got a chance to meet Jim Rohn. He was doing a seminar. But you know, Jim had this famous quote, to invest more in yourself than you do on your job. Um, and that's since evolved over time, like the greatest investment you can make is in yourself, but you've got to invest in yourself, your skillset, your mindset. And like we said, you do that through a variety of different ways. Find your place where, where you're going to get the right, the right information, the right guidance, right mentor, if you will, for where you are at this stage in your career, where you want to go. There's tons of people out there in and out of this industry who can help you along your journey. Um, So seek and you shall find, right? Knock and the door shall be open. Are you doing it? That's right. That's right. I really believe in that whole mentality of iron sharpens iron and, you know, who you're surrounding yourself with. And hey, even the best coaches have coaches. You know, this is a theme that has been coming up a lot just on our podcast and show me the most successful people and they have coaches. And I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind. You can't do it alone. No, no, no, not at all. No one gets to the top of success mountain alone, right? They've always got some people supporting them, whether it's family and friends or just mentors, companies like yours who invest in your people in a big way. And I know you do with the marketing and all that stuff, providing resources. So, yeah, you guys obviously have a hand in lifting your people up, too. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what it's all about, right? How are you serving and how are you helping the people around you and just serving with the knowledge you have, whether it's, you know, doing internal webinars. We do a lot of those for marketing, but yeah, that's. That's something that we believe in a lot. So talk to me about this next chapter. I mean, I know I've seen some takeovers on your podcast. You know, Michelle, Michael, she did a takeover. Katie did a takeover with Trevor York recently. He's a big friend of HMA Mortgage, too. Yeah. And so what's next? What's on the horizon? It's a great question. Katie, by the way, she's listening. Shout out Katie. I think she did three takeovers for me. Did she do three? Yeah. That's great. She's really stepped up and helped. Then I've had a couple other folks do takeovers. So what's next with the podcast? All right. So I've been doing it 10 years, over 400 episodes, right? I've been interviewed, as you said at the opener, lots and lots of loan officers. Where have you not gone? Yeah, right. By the way, I have a cool resource for people that you want to share it with them. Let me just make sure I got the URL correct. Yeah. Um, it's swipe the vault.com. That's V a U L T swipe the vault.com. What I did is I took 10 years of my podcast in 400 episodes, 425 right now to be exact, but, uh, I created, this is where I used AI. All right. So I was by going, okay. But I created this repository, if you will, where you can go, it's a searchable database, and you can just go punch in a topic, or we have buttons at the top that say AI, agent referrals, personal branding, mindset, market, all the different topics, video, et cetera. And you can go search based on the topic that you want to learn more about or see what was the podcast show about this. And so all 426 episodes now are in this kind of searchable archive that you can either go search and or just listen to the replay. But also what's included is like a swipe file with it. There's a playbook. If there's links and resources, those are in there. And you can just listen to that episode there right as well. So I think that was a pretty cool use case for AI to take that whole 10 years of knowledge and put it in a shareable resource so it doesn't just die on the shelf, you know. Dude, that's brilliant. I think that is an incredible resource. Yeah, because otherwise it's like digging through the Dewey Decimal system. Yeah, right. Oh, my gosh. Shout out Dewey Decimal. Love it. Love it. You know, I did not think that I'd pull out Dewey Decimal System when I woke up this morning, but here we are. What is she talking about? What a brilliant use for all of your 425, 26 episodes. Shout out to our production team. I want to do the same thing. Sorry, not sorry. It's coming for you. No pressure. No pressure. That's a great idea. Just swipe the vault.com. Yeah, that's wonderful. It's a wonderful way to repurpose all of the content that you've done over the past 10 years. Yes, thank you. How did you come up with that? I swiped the idea from somebody else. Did you? No, actually, Katie suggested the idea. But then there's somebody else that I follow who did the same thing. Not in this industry. Yeah. He is in the real estate industry, however, and he did something similar. So thank goodness AI made it easier because without AI, that would have been a lot harder. So it took me, I don't know, a weekend, maybe a couple of days, right? Let's just say 12 hours of work to put that together, right? Now that you're right. That is the perfect use case for AI because there would not be enough man hours, even just the intellectual capability to put that together on your own. It would have been months and months of work. But with AI to be able to do that is pretty. You know, it's funny. I tried to do it probably two years ago. and this is before AI was obviously as prevalent as it is now. The hardest part was procuring all those episodes because they live on Apple podcasts or Spotify. Right. And so there was no mechanism that was easily allowing me to download all those. Now all of a sudden AI Claude comes out and I'm like, Oh, I just went and did it. Okay, cool. That's amazing. To answer your question. All right. So what's coming next? Um, This is the idea that I'm toying with and I'm kind of testing it out right now. So think of the idea, seeing as the name is Swipe the Vault. Here's what I find, right? There's a lot of... information, whether they're podcasts or videos or whatever, that talk about ideas and concepts, even go to events, like you're sitting and listening to a keynote for an event and it's cool. You get inspired and you take some notes. But for me, I'm lately wondering like, what's the tangible takeaway that I can take that and implement it in my business in a weekend, right? Or in a few days. So that's really led me to this place of, I wanted to So the idea is it's called the swipe. All right. And so think about how you like this word tagline, marketing worth stealing. Man, I want to steal it. Right. You want to steal it. It's good. I want to steal the steal. So the idea is, is I take a marketing tool. I not just an idea of real live marketing sales initiative that, that got done and has receipts as results. So whether it's a Facebook ad, whether it's an email campaign, whether it's a social media post, whether it's an event or a class, um, I take that thing, that idea, that tactic, and I create a swipe file around it. So I'm going to be creating some of my own, but I'll also be interviewing one or two people a month, and they'll be sharing their swipe files. For instance, I interviewed somebody who has a ManyChat swipe file. You know what ManyChat is, right? I do. The DMT word. Yeah. So she shared her swipe file that she uses. She teaches real estate agents. Another guy I have runs ads for loan officers that run webinars, consumer direct webinars. So he's going to share the creative, the analytics, the CTAs, the soup to nuts. And my idea is let's take that and put it in a swipe file that people can download and essentially swipe and copy, make it their own for themselves. That's the idea. I love it. I love it. There's no wonder that Canva files and templates are so prevalent because it's easy to duplicate. It's easy to, you don't have to completely recreate the wheel. You can put your own branding and own spin on it. But if somebody is willing to share that intellectual property that they've spent a lot of time and energy putting together, I mean, I think... That's pretty amazing because think about it. It's never – when you share something, somebody doesn't just take it for themselves. They make it different. They add their own joie de vivre to it, their own branding, their own spin, and it changes, gets better. And if we can – like I said before, iron sharpens iron. If we can have this pool of people who are constantly leveling each other up, wow. Wow. Well, you know, that's what's actually happening with AI as well and courses, because I spent a fair amount of time studying creators, because let's just face it, I'm a creator. I've created courses as well. And, you know, what AI has done is it's, People just want the answer, right? It's like, my wife, she gets into like, telling these stories, right, these long stories, and she knows I have this saying, which she doesn't like, but I've said to her before, I'm like, hey honey, just show me the baby, you know? Don't tell me about the delivery, show me the baby. Land the plane. Land the plane, exactly. So people just want to freaking see the baby, right? They don't want to know about the delivery. Just show me the thing, man. And that's what AI has done is they just go to get answers. So people aren't watching long-form videos as much when it's a course thing or whatever. They just want to go to AI. That's why they like lead magnets and prompts and all those things. It's just like, give me, I have the car. Give me the keys or the gas to put in the car so I can go get the thing for myself. And that's kind of like what I'm playing on there. show me the baby show me the baby don't tell me my dog just showed up hey i know a dog just like that mine was named um what was his name i had pookie and winnie i had winnie was a he's just that dude that was dude oh it's a dude okay yeah our dog was a dude too it was short for winston No, like his name's, wait, Winston was short for, his name's dude. No, his name's dude. He's definitely a dude. Wow. Yeah. He's a cool dude. Wow. I love it. Jeff, this has been such a great conversation. And, you know, honestly, whenever I come into a conversation of a podcast, I never have any preconceived notions. I just like to have conversations and see where the wind takes us. But this has been wonderful. We covered a lot of different topics. Thank you. Lots of, I feel like, I hope, I hope people are inspired on many different levels. And, um, so yeah, yeah. So guys, make sure, make sure you like, and subscribe lending leadership, of course, but also check out mortgage marketing radio. Um, where can they go? Your website? Um, my agent classes go dot my agent classes.com to find Jeff. uh let's see they can go to obviously swipe swipe the vault.com is obviously with the the past episodes the podcast of course is mortgage marketing radio that probably be the two main place but if they want to learn more about what i do with the classes they can go to um my agent oh sorry wait a second wrong one i got a different one get more agents.com get more agents well who doesn't want more of those right how's that for url That's great. Yeah, swipe the vault. I'm going to be swiping a lot of stuff. Swipe away. And hopefully sharing some stuff, too, would be pretty cool. But thank you so much for your time. And give me feedback, by the way, as well. It's not a perfect thing. So let me know what could be better. That's a great idea. I love it. Well, everybody, thank you so much for tuning in today. My new BFF, Jeff over here, would love to be in your space more, Jeff. You got a lot of cool things going on. Glad to see that you're on the road to health and just inspiring people on lots of different levels. And thanks, everybody. Catch you next time.