The Truth About Growing Your Business on Social Media with Geoff Zimpfer and Chelsea Peitz

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, everybody, it's Jeff Zimfer. Welcome to another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast, thrilled that you've tuned in once again. And hey, real quick, if you haven't heard, we are opening up the exclusive invitation for those that are looking to grow their agent referrals, never call call the real estate agent again, never chase agents, never work with bottom feeders and have agents be attracted to working with you. How do we do that? We leverage an online educational platform leading with agent classes and set up in a way that's completely turnkey for you with done for you content, marketing, promotion, materials, a weekly live support group via our private Facebook group and much, much more plus you get access to all kinds of free educational videos, tutorials about how to become a modern mortgage originator, survive and thrive at the digital real estate shift. So not only do you get a bunch of done for you, turnkey classes, PowerPoint, speaker notes, handouts, transcripts, marketing, promotion and images, but you get a bunch of classes on Facebook, Facebook ads, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, video marketing and more. Want to check it out? Go to mortgagemarketing.pro. All right, our episode this week is coming to you by way of me being a guest on a good friend of mine's podcast, who I have a ton of respect for in this industry, Chelsea Pights. And she interviewed me on her podcast and I figured the conversation was so good that I wanted to share it with you guys so you could listen into it. Chelsea is a national trainer speaker in coach for the Fidelity national title company, family of companies. And so she does a lot of speaking and training and coaching around social media in the real estate industry and her, her jam, pretty much number one primary platform for her is Instagram. So you want to follow her at Chelsea.pightspeitz, Chelsea.pights on Instagram. And if you're looking to level up your Instagram game, she is definitely on my top three of short list of people to go to to learn how to you when it comes to Instagram. And so I hope you enjoy this kind of candid conversation, you know, where the tables are turned, the mics are reversed. I'm being interviewed instead of interviewing somebody else and I hope you enjoy this episode. So without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Jeff, welcome to the show. Tell us who we don't know who you are maybe yet. Some people might be listening. I'm sure you're a really big deal in the mortgage world as we all know you from there. But for my real estate people who don't maybe know you as well, tell us who you are and how long you've been in the industry and a little bit about yourself. Sure. Appreciate the opportunity to be here. Really excited. I've been in the industry since 2003, started as a board. Oh, I be you. 2001. Oh, look at you. When you win. Yeah. So it's you know how this is you people said this before it's like once you get in this industry, it's hard to get out. It's kind of a passion play. I really fell in love with the industry and the people. I had a, I don't know. I'm one of those people who actually enjoyed working with real estate agents, right? By and large because I think that's a great dynamic there. But bottom line is this, right? So as an originator for over 10 years did pretty well. But my passion was always teaching and my passion was leading with education. And I started to, when I started as an originator, you know, I didn't know anybody. My background is, it was a national sales trainer for Tony Robbins and I decided I had to get off the road and stop traveling. That was a great training ground, by the way. This is back 30 years ago. So back in the OG days, right? And learned a heck of a lot. But here's the back story. Okay. So when I traveled around the country, I lived in a different city. Every six, eight weeks, myself and six other people lived in a city and we moved from city to city to city, promoting Tony seminars. Did that for about two years as like a fraternity on the road, right? It was a lot of fun and a lot of great learning as well because it was all, it's going to a city. You have a bunch of meetings set up to go and present in front of sales offices and groups. You could assume that many of the groups I presented in front of were real estate agents. Mm-hmm. Every common like every single day. I'm in these real estate franchises across the country as well as mortgage, auto dealers, insurance, et cetera. That online is, I got to know the culture of real estate mortgage pretty well. When I just had to come off the road, I had to make a decision, well, what career am I going to go into? And so this is back in 2003, right? And what's hot? What's cranking up, though? There's a good year. It was a good year. Exactly. It was a good run. So I decided to become a mortgage originator and low and behold, right? I struggled my first year as a mortgage originator because I had, I was all of a sudden new in my mindset, right? Even though I had a lot of background in training and sales and speaking and all that kind of stuff, I was new. I was a babe in the woods. So I started cold calling. I started doing all the stuff L.O.'s do to reach out to realtors. And if you're a realtor listening, you can appreciate this, right? And so what I found was that didn't work that well or it was unpredictable and consistent. And I needed to come up with a system for positioning myself in my local community, Southern California, Orange County, very competitive space. I needed to show up and do something different so I didn't sound or seem like every other loan officer in town. So what I did, one day I had this epiphany, wait a minute, I know seminars, huh? What have I been thinking? Why don't I put on a lunch and learn? Lunch and learn, not a new concept, but I hadn't done it and not many were doing it. So fast forward, I decided to host an educational seminar event. I brought in a guest speaker and then eventually I started presenting the content myself and what I found was that agents were hungry for information for education. And this is, of course, back in 2003, 4.5, kind of pre-internet, Facebook, and I mean social media, all that stuff. And that's what I've led with ever since. And then I've pivoted into being a national sales trainer at Movement Mortgage. And now I've had the privilege of teaching real estate agents all around the country, both virtually and in person, on behalf of movement and other companies, digital marketing, social media, personal branding, and all that kind of stuff. And here I am, got a podcast, got a book, you know, and we just keep rocking. That is so amazing. I love that story. You know, we have similar stories in that nature. So what I love is that you just talked about how you had this mindset. It blows my mind. You were working for Tony Robbins, the ultimate mindset guru, right? Yet you still have this mindset of, oh, I'm new, I don't know anything. And in your book, which we're going to talk about, your book is called Disrupt or Die, a very light, you know, little lighter there. In your face, Disrupt or Die, how to survive and thrive the digital real estate shift. And I recommend everybody go out on Amazon and find this. And we're going to be talking about today. But you talk about how one of the most important things that anyone can do in a new field is to lean on all of the incredible gifts that you talents that you've had in the past. And we're going to talk about social media today. And we're going to talk about how, you know, maybe you're not using a platform, but what can you learn from it? It's the same concept. So I'm excited to talk about that, but I do have to ask you, did you get to spend time with Tony? Yes. And was it cool? And like, I just have to know one sentence about your amazing experience with that. Um, yeah, just to try and come up with a word. There was a few interactions that were, I mean, there were some enjoyable interactions, meaning it was, we would get to, here's the thing. He used to have this one day seminar, a sales seminar, that would be a 12 hour seminar. And like 40 degrees. Exactly. The room is super cold. Yeah. 2000 people in the room. Yeah. And so we did that. And he would come to the city every six, eight weeks. And so we would get to have dinner with him afterwards. Right. And so that was always fun. It's like us going out after dinner and it was just a great experience to be around that, to be influenced and inspired by that. But at the same time, I can remember a, um, a, uh, end of year, uh, dinner we had was in Canada. It was a sales dinner and it's like, you know, the annual hand out the, the end of year, like trophies or pins and accomplishments and stuff. And I'll never forget this, man, because, uh, he used to give out these little pins and they had little different, like diamonds or stones and then based on achievement. So we're selling tickets, right? Just based on ticket sales. And, um, he's putting it on my, my, my lapel of my jacket there. And, you know, I'm tall, but he's taller than me. And I just remember I'm like, looking at me, he's like, you know, looking at me, he's like, yeah, I don't know exactly what he said, but basically it was like, you can do better. Oh, no, you've gotten much more in you, right? There's, I didn't want to get the impression that was in a negative connotation. Right. He was, you know, trying to say, hey, you can do even more. You, you got it, Dan, you, you've got greatness and your interest, too. Okay. Yeah. And it was just like, oh, damn. Raise it up. Well, thank you for sharing that background. I'm sure it was a really interesting place. And you probably got to learn a lot from it and from the people. So let's dive into your book, um, you know, nothing new here that we're talking about. There's a digital shift. And we have a lot of disruptors, um, but I want to talk about, let's talk about the shift and disruption that's happened in the last six months, even about social media. I think social media has changed in the last six months. That alone the last six years. So what are you recommending now to our industry, our realtors, our lenders who are like, okay, I got to do this now or never for sure. What are you seeing that's working? What's different? Because what used to work six months ago is probably not working right now. That's a good question. How much time do we have? Um, I would say, you know, the last six months for sure. And especially the last three months with COVID, you know, uh, or however long it's been that we've been in this whirlwind of 122 days for me, but I'm not counting. I would say so the message I'm giving to agents when I'm doing classes is, you know, what COVID did is it forced us to, you know, look at what's available for us for communication tools for showing up and be present. It was to your point earlier, um, you know, where we used to be able to do open houses. And I know it varies across the country to what degree you can do that. Or we used to be able to go to client meetings or come to, now there's all these extra considerations around like wearing a mask, you know, and all this stuff. And so my, my, my, my question to the realtors is how long have you been saying to yourself? You know, I really should be more active on social media. I really should like get going with that video. I really should, should, should, right? What happens when you do that? You should all over yourselves, right? Right. Snared drum. And so here's my question. If not now, when, right, if not now, when, because all you've been left with is this, a mobile phone and your laptop, right? And so if, if the bit, you know those wells, anybody, the excuse is, I don't have time. I don't know what to say, right? Well, the excuse of, I don't have time, I think, was removed a bit more with COVID. Yes, we've got the at home challenges and not homeschooling and all that. But still you don't have the busyness of all the other stuff you used to have. So if you haven't dug in up till now and figured out how to learn how to post a video, how to do whatever, you know, and now as social distancing is removed and we get back to the busyness, you're just going to play that card again along to busy. Well, that's not an excuse anymore because people have gotten in front of you and ahead of you now. And I think just to bring it back to answer your question, what's working? Well, what's working is if you're working, if you are exercising your muscles of practicing and learning and adopting, adapting, you know as well as anybody that to get good at social, no one shows up good, right? No one shows up excellent. It's going to take time. It's going to take practice and learning and failing and being willing to be embarrassed perhaps to a certain degree. Like oops, that video came out wrong. Or have you ever done the video where it's like sideways or you didn't mean it was, right? So I think really the answer though, the big answer to what's working is what's working and what's always work and always will work is you being you showing up and being authentic, you know? It's really hard to be you on social media. I mean, to be honest, like a lot of people and I talk about this a lot is I kind of hate that word authenticity because it's overused and underplained. Right. And you know, it's really hard to think about, well, geez, I mean, I don't know, how do it be myself? Like it feels so weird to like go on camera and be myself. And honestly, I tell people, listen, you're not going to be yourself for probably the first 15 videos. As you do it and get more comfortable, you will get more comfortable. But it like to your point, you don't just show up and, you know, if you do great because you are like the 1% of people that's like, I'm great on camera and I'm totally comfortable. But yeah, it takes work to be yourself to be honest. I don't want to paint the picture that, you know, people say, I'll just be authentic and be yourself. That's very hard to do because we are not used to being on camera. We are not used to being vulnerable or opening up ourselves, you know, and posting something. And, you know, maybe it's the wrong format. Maybe it's the, I said something that was wrong or gave a wrong stat. I mean, those are things that we all learn from. So I think a lot of people have that mindset that they're really stressed about that. Yeah, and so here, this is interesting because in my book, like the reason one of the reasons that motivated me, motivated me to write the book is there's a lot of people out there saying, you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to be here, you have to be there. And I thought that was a bunch of BS. And I also wanted to address the concept of, do I really need to be on video to succeed? And I actually asked Tom Ferry that question and the short answer is, no, you don't. As if, like you said, if you're not right for video, if you're not comfortable, all that kind of stuff, it's going to be bad, right? We don't want to show up and have brand burn. Now I think a lot of people create excuses for themselves around that and you can get good or better, like you just, like you learned how to drive a car, right? And now you're shaving and putting on makeup and texting while you're driving, right? The same thing could be true with learning. It's a skill. You've learned how to be a real estate agent. You could learn how to actually hit record on your phone. But the real question is, okay, do you have to be on X video, call it whatever. Do you have to be on social media? Okay. No, but what are you missing out on by not being there? Or what could you do if you were there and doing it? You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think, you know, obviously I've always been a really big proponent of social media and stories as a particular format that's my favorite, but I have to tell people time and time again. In these last four months, those have been the only lifeline to my friends and family that it, that's it. Well, see, that's a great point. And here's what COVID did is it brought to the surface the reality of the world that we're living in and the mediums by which people communicate and stay connected. And who knows the long term ripple effects of COVID, let's just face it, it's going to be, the impact will be around for a while, right? Yeah. And the thing too is that we're very, you know, ROI, return on investment, very timeline, very scared. We want rules. We want something. We want to say, oh, you know, why am I doing these stories every day? I mean, I'm not getting any leads from it, but I will tell you, I have had people that I've met that said, oh my gosh, I've watched your stories for two years. Have I ever heard from them? But they are watching, right? So, you know, we can't negate that by being there and being consistent, and I'm not saying you have to do post every day. In fact, you shouldn't do post every day in the feed, you know, stories is a different thing. You should be doing stories every day. But you, we can't quantify, you know, the ROI of what's going to happen with social media. And I think now, you know, people are like, okay, yeah, I got to be there. I have to be, this is the only way I'm going to connect with people. We can do Zoom calls all day long, but guess what? Nobody but you in that person can find you on a Zoom. All right, so let's talk about Facebook. I mean, first of all, what's your favorite social media platform? That is a good question. Favorite, I'm going to put that judge that by how often I'm on it. I'm going to say Facebook. Okay, so we're going to talk about Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. So let's talk about Facebook. What do you, when you're teaching, what are you, what are your tips? Like two or three tips that you're like, this is really working on Facebook. Here's what I would do if you're going to start really going all in. Well, I hate to sound cliche or repetitive, but the truth of the matter is it's video. What's what's working, you know, and I know that's a challenge for people who are uncomfortable on video or whatever, but I mean, you know, I mean, I mean, we're in sales and we're in a business that requires us to be known and to have people know what we exist and what do we do? And the best way, you know, to, to create that is with video. And our people that are doing video, quote, winning or getting better engagement and traction. Yeah, they are because that's what people pay attention to. Well, and also to you again, you know, people, and I love that you and I are kind of social media rebels because I don't buy into all of like, oh, no, you have to do this and at this time, and I tell people who cares if they don't watch your live video? And they're like, well, what do you mean? I, I thought you said post video. I'm like, yeah, but I'm still seeing it when I scroll past, right, in the feed. And there are ways to, you know, encourage more engagement. Like I see so many videos that are going on Facebook that don't have anything in the description. They don't have a catchy title. They don't have a summary. Guess what? I may watch your video if I can actually read it. And I might be like, you know what? I want to learn more about that or I might save it and watch it later, which is a really big algorithmic boost for your content. So we've got to get away from the idea of I'm going to force people to consume my content in this specific way. You know, so yeah, video is hugely important. But, you know, I do a lot of stuff that isn't video and it still is getting engagement. But I mean, faces, we have to see your face. And a lot of people say, well, I've got a marketing person. That's awesome. You know, love if you have some team help who is understanding your culture and how you speak and all of that. But we really want to see the face of the person. And we need to right now, I physically need, I did not know this. I physically need to see other people in real life. And I didn't know that until it got taken away from me and I just very strange. You know, I want to see people. So yeah, that's the COVID impact. You know, yeah, they still need to see your face, like billboards on the highway. It's like the bus benches you're driving by. Well, I mean, what you're really talking about there is the need for human connection. And we all miss that with COVID restrictions and things like that. And so I know that's going to come back. But the point is, is that with that being removed from us, how are you creating that human connection? It's that's the face. That's how you do it, you know, and what we're really talking about. Facebook is, is your number one. What about stories stories on Facebook? Yeah, honestly, I, I don't see the same level of engagement on stories on Facebook that I do Instagram. Same. I agree with you. I don't love Facebook stories. But I think that it's good to get in now early adopter, you know, it's kind of like those people that got on TikTok. I mean, it's not saturated yet. So if you're posting a story a couple times a day, at least your friends are going to see your name and your face before they even get to the scroll. So it's kind of that, you know, visibility. And so here's, here's again, the bigger like way, we start with the big concepts, right, human connection, you know, but the truth is, like I said, we're in a business that requires us to be known number one, right? Like there's a, the question I ask agents all the time, I was like, what's, what's more important being well known or knowledgeable, right? And the base back and forth, knowledgeable, well known, right? All this kind of stuff. And, and then I ask them a question, how many of you know an agent who doesn't care as much as you, isn't as professional as you, doesn't know as much as you, but outsells you every single month. How many of you know an agent like that and everybody was like, yeah, I do. Why? Because he or she's more well known. That's it. That's true. You know, I get that. You know, it's so funny because I tell people a lot when I speak that I had asked my community for referral, somebody to do business with and they, you know, I got, I ended up getting 10 referrals and I just happen to be, this was pre-COVID. We were driving in the car. I was in the passenger seat and I'm like, let me just get out my phone and I didn't go to websites. I went to Instagram because I just wanted to see immediately pictures, who they work, et cetera. So out of the 10 people that I had been referred, all of them had Instagram accounts, which was awesome. One of them had an active Instagram story and that's the person I called because I got to see, oh, here's a little peek into their life. And, you know, the, here's what their kiddo was like. It was personalized. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I was on a call earlier. I was talking to somebody who was telling me a story about an insurance agent. And this is where we're talking about why social media is so effective and why it works for building trust is because it personalizes you to a degree. This insurance agent had in her background a picture of a sailboat and she had like a saying or her passion was sailing, right? And so there was some kind of tagline she had about sailing and a boat. And it's like, well, okay, well, maybe I'm not into sailing. But here's the thing is she now actually became more human, right? By sharing something that she's passionate about and cares about. And you're like, oh, that's cool. I could really, you know, other than the vanilla, like, you know, sterile real estate agent with that stock photo, you know, who you're going to, we do business with people, you know, and you'll never get away from that old adage about, you know, no, like, and trust. Well, okay, how do they get to know you? Where are you showing up? Where is the attention, right? It's not at the local, like, park or whatever right now, you know, or the community event. So where are you showing up? Now's the time to show up. How are you showing up? You know, what is your platform of choice? And then we get into the content discussion on that, you know, I thought for sure you were going to say LinkedIn was what was your favorite? Cause I see you all over LinkedIn, which is great. You know, it's a, it's a, you to like, how you're showing up. Yeah, I'm pissed at LinkedIn. Why? Screw them. Cause I'm not approved to go live on LinkedIn. Oh, me too. By the, I've tried to apply three times. I know. LinkedIn will not. LinkedIn will not approve me to go live. But so talk about some of your tips over there on LinkedIn. Cause I, I, it's funny because I've had Judy Fox on the show. And, you know, LinkedIn is, it's just still like, oh, yeah. Fox rocks. Shout out to her. Shout out to hashtag Fox rocks. That it's just like this unknown, like, I get over to LinkedIn. I don't know what to do. And so talk about some of your tips that you see you're working there. Well, again, we're being totally transparent, honest, right? Yeah. Um, I'm currently evaluating if we, our time is limited, our bandwidth, um, and choosing a social platform to go on. I'm currently working through is LinkedIn, the right platform for real estate agents. You know what, that's a, that is actually a really interesting, um, observation because I'm putting together a presentation today, in fact, and I was like LinkedIn, you know, cause a lot of people say, if you were me and you're in this position, where should I be? What's number one? What's number two? So I, um, was, you know, saying if you're a commercial focused broker, LinkedIn is an excellent place for you to be. And then I go to Instagram. Now, if you're residential, I go Facebook, then I go Instagram. So to your point, I do think people need to have a really optimized profile and check in there. That's a very interesting, um, and, and, and I know that a lot of, you know, real estate professionals are just like, gosh, what I put over here on LinkedIn isn't working like maybe something might work more on Facebook or Instagram. So, you know, why, um, because it's not localized, um, and, and, and, and, and, and, and like, LinkedIn isn't local. It's, it's a networking party. It's, it's worldwide. It's, it's national. Yeah. And so, so that goes to the point of look, or I'm a local real, look, I know you can do referrals and reload and all that kind of stuff, but the reality of your business is going to be local, right, within your sphere of influence. And yes, I know people get referrals because I've interviewed on a mass and that, that's all, maybe what's that 10% I don't know. But the point is, is you're trying to build a local brand, right, to be known as a local expert. I don't think LinkedIn offers that plus LinkedIn advertising, eh, you know, call me when it's ready, you know? Yeah, I have not dove into LinkedIn advertising. It's too expensive. That's, yeah, I read some, some feedback on it and, and some of those comments as well. But, um, yeah, I, I have to say Facebook. I always tell people if you're in residential real estate, I would start with Facebook. I would do Instagram, for sure. And still you don't optimize profile LinkedIn, but I always tell them to go there, you know, to those kind of two, two areas first. Well, all right. We're going to keep going. So this is cool. This is, this is truth. Talk Thursday. Let's go through Instagram. Well, before we do, let's not forget the big daddy YouTube, oh, yeah, no, we're going to get to YouTube. Absolutely. So we're going to talk about YouTube right after Instagram. So you are obviously on Instagram. I know that because I'm aware and I tag you, um, and I have to say, and I mean, hopefully Instagram isn't listening, but I used to like hate Instagram. I used to be like Facebook, I used to love Snapchat. And now I love Instagram mainly because of the stories. I adore the stories format. It's just, it makes me happy. I always tell people, do what makes you happy. If you hate going to one platform, don't go there, spend your time doing something that you enjoy. And so are you a lover of Instagram? Are you doing Instagram stories? What are your thoughts? I'm trying to get better at Instagram. Um, uh, I think I have, uh, I don't have to love hate relationship with social media as a way to articulate it, but that's kind of how I feel, you know, because I've also often. Well, yeah, I know, but it's, but it's not easy. It's not easy. It's not. It changes all the time. Yeah. But that's the struggle. That's the frustration, right? And it takes time and you've got to learn and, you know, get good and all that kind of. So that's why it's frustrating, um, to me personally, I'm just being totally honest with you. Yeah. Um, but, but I realize it's required for business, you know? So do I, do I love Instagram? I mean, I, I probably wouldn't say I love Instagram. I enjoy it. I'm going to learn how to, to do it better more frequently, which is why I have this book right here. What the post by the one and only Chelsea fights. Thanks for the plug. You bet. Uh, so okay, so you're, you're learning Instagram and I love that you said that too, because as people who teach social media, we're letting you know, number one, we don't know everything. We're not experts in every platform. We have our favorites. We have ones we don't love. And that's okay. And you can show up where you want to be and you can go deep into that community and be super successful, you know, so it's, I follow your lead. I look to you with stories. You're pretty amazing with stories. Um, so I look to you as an example for that. I need to get better with stories. For me, it's a challenge of, I'm, I'm impatient and I'm thinking I could be doing something like stitching the stories together and all that, you know, I'm like, oh, overthinking it. Am I? It's just like pull your phone and just, you know, and, and you don't, again, to, to what we talked about in the beginning when people say, um, you know, I, I don't know to post or, you know, my life is boring or I'm not good on camera or I'm going to be me. I'm going to be authentic. The stories thing is something you evolve with over time and, and you will find, because people are like, well, I got to put really exciting content on my stories. I'm like, I just talked about the catch up ranch, uh, being a target crunch, um, and ask people if I should buy it or not and, like, my DMs exploded. Oh my gosh, it's disgusting. Don't do it. People like, they're like, get your, my kid loves it. It's amazing. And I'm like, that's not the most boring thing I could imagine posting. A picture of me, you know, holding up the cramped bottle and be like, what do you guys think? And I think that's, that's the, the, the gap that people, me personally, have to cross is to, you know, to, to, like you said, to, to share your life with your followers, your community and not have to feel this pressure of like, oh, who the hell's going to want to watch that? Or this is boring. So that's, I think my area of that I struggle because I do fine with like my podcasts, reposting video clips and all that. That's, that's cool. I can do that. But I would, I don't do very well at right now on Instagram specifically is get personal. You know what I mean? Um, I need to exercise that month like I was just on this trip to Big Bear, right? There's a lot of photos and images that I could post, it just haven't yet. You know, here's the thing, too, is, is we talk about private versus person. Yeah. And the personal is just nothing more than being like human and relatable. Doesn't have to be private, but you know, and, and I know nobody can see this. We're on video. But like, for example, I'm looking at your cool background, you know, behind you, I'm telling you, if you posted, like, here's where I got these really cool artwork and, you know, this is why I got it or, you know, things, things like that, people will be really interested. Um, you know, it's just, it feels weird, right? It feels weird sort of like documenting your life and, and hey, as songs are being honest, I'll just tell people, I posted a video on IGTV maybe two or three weeks ago, maybe it was like a month ago. And I was like, I have this is such a boring topic, nobody's going to want to know about this. Why I'm posting this and I was very hard on myself and I was like, oh, this is going to be like such a, you know, nobody's going to like this video. It was probably the most engagement I've gotten with the video. And I was like, well, there we go again, you know, telling ourselves a story that nobody's going to like it. Why would I waste my time? And you just never know what's going to resonate with someone. Well, I think the other thing I know of people have given me feedback on and I can relate to this as well is demographics age groups. Something about people in certain age groups feeling overly self-promotional. Oh, sure. Or like people like it's like, it's not all about me. Yeah, right. Yeah, absolutely. And to that, I tell people, it has nothing to do with ego or fame. It has everything to do with communicating in the most human way possible, which is face to face. I think that's the that's the shift is that we need to mentally make that shift to understand that is the world now. And people, well, you make it some people to judge or whatever you say, oh, really dude, you know, but I mean, that's the minority because if you're just honestly sharing, just like, hey, you know what, here's what's going on with my life, that's people connect with that. Yeah. Okay. So YouTube. Yeah, yeah. YouTube. YouTube. YouTube. Now, you do a lot of YouTube because I know you've got your podcast and you know, it's funny. I start. Now, this sounds egotistical. I started on YouTube. I think I posted on YouTube. Yeah. I posted on YouTube. I look back to my old videos. I think in 2006. Wow. That wasn't really in the game. Yeah. And then of course, it became like, oh my god, this is so hard to do. And I'm going to move over to then I started to do podcasts just audio because I'm like, I didn't want to have to deal with video production and all that kind of stuff. You work human too. We don't wait. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And look, I think in the context of who our listeners are, you know, realtors, originators, let's look. We also have to look at this intelligently from a business standpoint of we've got limited time bandwidth budget. YouTube can produce amazing results for people. We both know Karen Carr. Right. She's rocking it with YouTube. And I'm seeing more agents adopt YouTube as a strategy because let's face it, YouTube is a search engine. People search for real estate, right? Localized real estate and things like that. So that can go in your favor. The caveat with YouTube is it's a long play, right? It's not quick hit. You're not going to run ads and get leads and things like that. It is a long play, mostly organic content. Yes, you can run some ads and all. But the point is it's consistency. Remember I taught a YouTube class for real estate agents here locally. And I think it was the next class I'm teaching the guy, I think it was like a couple months later. And the guy comes up and he's like, yeah, if I'm just frustrated with YouTube, I'm not getting any leads. And I'm like, well, how many videos have you posted? He's like six. Like, yeah, probably get to 60 and then maybe something will happen. You have to post a minimum once a week on YouTube. Yeah. And you know what? It's going to probably take, I mean, you could get something in six months or six weeks. But let's be honest, it's probably take a year, maybe two years. And people are like, whoa, you want me to post something every week for two years. And then there is like that tipping point where things happen in between. Number one, you're going to get a lot better on camera, which is going to help you on Instagram stories and Facebook live and all of those things. And yeah, I have a video that I made three years ago. And two years later, it suddenly got this life of its own. That's another great point about why YouTube has an advantage over other platforms is the content lives on, right? Other platform feeds it's gone in the feed. Right. Right. So I'm a very different game over there because people are being there with intent. It's about keywords. And you know, here's the thing I tell people too, don't do it all. Like if if YouTube is where you decide to go all in on, you kind of have to go all in for a while there and learn it, do it. And then you can kind of, you know, oh, and I'm jumping on Facebook and Instagram, it's extremely hard to do YouTube really well and all the other things really well too, especially if it's just you, right? If you're shooting videos, you're editing, you're making the content. So it's not that it's impossible. But you mentioned Karen, our friend Karen Carr, you know, she's really focused on YouTube. She is on the other socials, but she's really going all in. But only after she's been on YouTube for a couple of years. Right. Exactly. All right. So let's get back into your book. So you have so much good information here and it's put together really, really well. So I want to talk about how to improve conversions. Because now we kind of talked about like, hey, we got to get out there, we got to get our content. But how do we get that to actually do something? Like we want to make business. So tell us about that. You have a section in here about, you know, really optimizing your conversion. What page is that again? Okay. Well, let's see. I took a note. It's got to be between 101 and 143 because I didn't write a page with the other notes that I have. I see it right here. Okay. The lighting is terrible in my office right here. But hold on. Okay. So we're talking about conversions. Well, it depends, right? From where? Okay. So like it's so referencing the book. So yes. I'm talking about lead generation. And this again goes back to why I love like I'm the self-proclaimed chief truth teller at my own podcast, right? Because I believe in telling the truth and there's a lot of like not truth out there. But look, from the book, there's six types of lead sources, right? Your audience knows this referrals and repeat business. It's the number one source. And I think a lot of people overlook that. Like there's this quote that the future of your business is in your CRM, right? So how effective are you at that? Number one, nurturing past clients, you know, nurturing leads and all that. So referrals and repeat organic, which is content marketing, which is we're talking about, right? Karen Carr, for example, on YouTube, she gets organic leads every single week and so do other people on different platforms. Respecting and farming, the more traditional type stuff, which, by the way, still works. It still works. Yep. There's a guy in my book, makes half a million dollars a year as a real estate agent, cold calling. Still work. Everything works. It depends on how long you're willing to stick with it. And yeah. My saying about everything works is everything works, but not always and not for every one. Exactly. Right? Exactly. Because it's cold calling, you know, a doorknocking going to work in Manhattan? No. Doorknocking works in like podunk Indiana or whatever, where it's that whole type community thing. And I know post COVID, right? It's a different conversation. Right. So, all right. So get to the conversion. Well, for talking about running ads, paid ads, I think it's all about message to market match. Hmm. Yes. Okay. So what's the intent of the ad, who are you trying to attack a track? And what is, what is the intent of the ad? You know, are you just looking to build your brand, to build awareness? I think too many agents come out of the gate with like just pumping listings. Hmm. Here's my hot listing. Here's my hot listing. And they just want to, you know, go from first date to getting married, you know, without any kind of courtship in between. We know that's not how sales typically evolves. So I think most, the biggest mistake I see agents make is having short term mindset with paid ads. And like three months in, they're like, oh, Facebook sucks, I'm not getting any, you know, with a lead suck, which is like, you got to understand the game and what you're playing. And, you know, I'm sure you've said this, other people have heard this, people don't get on Facebook to look for homes, right? They get on there to like watch cat videos and engage with their friends and cousins and all that kind of jazz and all of the thing else that I was on Facebook. So it's, you're really interrupting them. Yeah. Exactly. And so your content, your copy, your call to action, your headline, your image, this is, I think it goes back to the big, the issue we're talking about here, the thread through all of this is to succeed using these new, these new mediums is a skill. It is a learned skill that you have to learn. You can't just like throw it against the wall and hope it sticks and then say, oh, the platform sucks. It's not the platform. It's that you just haven't learned the skill well enough. And it's, you know, is it easy to learn? No. Is it free to learn? Yes. Can be. Yeah. YouTube Academy. Right. Right. Google your face off and you can find anything when you really want to. Like when you really want to find something out, you can go to the internet and figure it out. Could it take you three hours to go through 20 videos? Yeah. Absolutely. But it's there. You can, you can figure it out. Yeah. And definitely helps to get some training, coaching, mentor, whatever, to help shorten that curve. But when it comes to conversion, right, once, once again, it's all message to market match. And then what's your, what is your post lead opt-in process look like? I'm trying to remember that the agent I saw speaking is from San Diego, I forget he sells like 300 homes a year. But anyway, guess how he generates leads postcards. Okay. So postcards he does like geo targeting all that kind of stuff. But his point was, you know, if you see an agent who's who says, you know, complaining about leads or whatever or leads don't convert or the leads are bad, Glengaric and Ross. Take a look at. Stake knives. Exactly. Right. Mitch and Murray are coming down. So it's all about, I bet take a look at their back end lead, nurture, optimize it, you know, process. Usually where the breakdown is, right, right, yeah, because it's, I mean, you have to contact people sometimes for 12 months, maybe 18 months, repeatedly, root different messages and show up at the right time. So yeah, I agree with you. So the follow up and people give up on the follow up and it could be a two year pipeline. Leads you're going to get from, you know, interruption, right? I happen to be going to my mailbox. I happen to be going to Facebook. Those are typically going to take longer. Yeah. And then we have Google, PPC ads, right? So paper click, which I dive into the book and what does CPC mean, it mean, and you know, overturn on ad span and all say, I put that in the book because I know most agents don't even know what the heck that is. It's very confusing, you know, it's a whole new world. It can be. Now, obviously, yeah, with Google, paper click, right, you need some more intelligence around that. However, the difference between those ads as I go through in here in the book, like in terms of the best, the better quality ads, of course, or better quality investment in lead spend, if you will, this first and foremost, you know, past clients, fear of influence, all that kind of jazz, your CRM, and then as you go further down the funnel, like in terms of quality leads, organic is going to be good quality leads because they've been consuming your content for a while. And as you get further down paid, paid, paid, paid, the one advantage of Google, like paper click ads is those are high intent, right? Google have clicked on that intentionally versus some ads showing up in their newsfeed on Facebook and they're like, oh, I'll take a look, that's a cool look and pool, let me click on that. Yeah. Exactly. So better leads, higher quality leads, you know, from your organic, like referral, and then as you're paying for it, you're just going to have to have more patience and make sure you tweak and tinker with the messaging too. You got to have a system, you have to have technology and automation. There's no way you're going to be able to keep up with or give a responsive enough experience for these clients by trying to, you know, man, and then all from your mobile phone. Hold on, Sally. I got, you know. It didn't happen. It gets a lot really quick. Yeah. Absolutely. Amazing. So I love that. Okay. So I want to finish up by talking about social proof and getting reviews because that's something that, you know, a lot of people have said to me, I mean, what's the best way? I mean, how do I ask for reviews? Where do I get them? What if I have reviews for Google and I have reviews for Facebook and you have a section in your book about the importance of kind of that social proof and getting reviews and strategies. So share a few strategies that have really been working for you. Yeah. It's funny. I like to have fun when I teach classes, right? And so I kind of build it up this way. I was like, okay, I'm about to give you the number one secret to getting online reviews. And everybody's like, oh, what is it? And I had to see how many smart people, anybody know it? Anybody know? Ask. Yeah. I know we are sometimes really afraid to ask for many things, the referral, testimonial, what we need and want, right? Yeah. So what's the, what are you telling people? I mean, I like asking. Like what? Jokes aside, right? It's a joke, but it's true because you just validated it by saying enough people don't ask. And I think people should be asking up front in the sales process instead of waiting for the end. At some point during your client engagements, when they've chosen you and you said, yes, you're my agent, you're my lender, at some point, I think you have to have some scripting involved that says, hey, appreciate that very much. One of the ways we build our business is through referrals and of course today it's all about online referrals and testimonials. So would you do us one thing, Chelsea, if we blow your socks off, if we exceed your expectations, would you be willing at the end of our transaction, our transaction to give us a review? Mm-hmm. That's the person going to say. Yeah. I think they would say sure. Absolutely. If you do a great job. Yeah, exactly. Great. So you're already, you're already preparing them for that to come, right? Now how you get the reviews, there's a few different ways. I mean, you could use a review software platform, like social survey, like REX, like there's a bunch of them out there, right? What? Trust, pilot, and others. So there's a bunch of software tools you can use that will automatically send out review requests at the end. If you don't want to get that fancy, you could just send an email to people, let them know, hey, by the way, great transaction. So you basically resell the experience that they had. Hey, and you can have an end of transaction survey, right? Did we do this? Did we do that? Did we exceed blah, blah, blah? And it's just like, oh my god, you were so awesome. Yeah, great. And would you mind clicking this link, right, in our email, choose which platform you want to go to, Google, Facebook, or another one, maybe your website, or your Facebook page or something, right? But I've seen agents, this is a really great practice because it's rare unless you're using a software tool, which will put those reviews at multiple places. I think if you just, if you don't want to do that, you all you have is email, you give them three choices, right? And let them pick one. And also a really quick, like step two, three, because we can't let everyone knows how to leave a Google review or that it's not to leave it, you know, so really make it easy. Click this link. Here's a little screenshot, step one, step two, step three, and there you go. And here's a little add on I like to do that is to give people three questions. But I think if you did it in the right order, what was your experience, can I remember from when I remember these now, what was your concerns and what was your result? I think those are the three, something like that. But you got to give them two or three questions, at least to answer, hey, why did you choose, right, the Smith team real estate? What concerns did you have and then what was your experience, right? Just if you could answer those three questions on your, on your review, that'd be awesome. That's up to you. Those, that topic too, because it, you know, when you're left to your own devices where you have to think of what to say, it's nice to sort of have those jumping off points. So I like that you, you know, I think it's a really smart idea is when you're asking for a review or testimonials, having some questions that people can just answer the questions and not have to think about, you might get more positive information because you gave them some things to talk about, then just say, all right, just fill in this blank box. Yeah, it's hard for people to, to write, you know? Well, I want to thank you for your review of my book. Of course, I left you one for your book because it's awesome. Thank you. And I want everybody who's listening to be able to go and follow you and get your book and listen to your podcast. So just tell everybody where they can find you all the places. Yes, probably one of the best places to go, particularly for the book is DisruptorDieBook.com. The reason being is I give people a choice on there, there's a link to get it from Amazon. Of course, it is on Amazon. But I'll also send you the book for free if you just want to cover shipping. But the reason why that website is good DisruptorDieBook.com is because I have a free companion course that goes with the book. So I've got videos in there, I got interviews, I got some downloads and stuff like that. And I'm going to be adding to it as well. So if you're looking for more than just what's in the book, that's there for you. So that's the best place to go there. And then if you want to tune into the podcast, it's mortgagemarketingradio.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Awesome. And should they be finding you by your name or your podcast name when they're looking for you in Instagram and all the places? Ah, so in Instagram, my handle is at mortgagemarketing live. Oh, okay. Some doing this live show and experimenting with that. Don't worry, I'm going to put all of that information in our show notes. And I'm just so excited that we were able to get together and do this podcast. So thanks for all of your insights. Again, you can go find the book. And I would go to his website, the disruptordiebook.com, right? Where you can go and get the companion guide. And what a deal. Just pay for shipping. I would say go there. So great job with that. Thanks again for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Enjoy it. 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 purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. 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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.