What Does Your Out of Office Email Say About You?

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey listeners, what's up? It's time for another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Hey listeners, welcome, welcome, welcome to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. So thrilled you have tuned in, we're going to get right into it. Okay, so a couple of bits of housekeeping first and foremost. If you've not yet joined our Facebook group, please do so today. This week when you're hearing this, go to Facebook, type in Mortgage Marketing Radio, jump on in there and you'll get access to more of what's going on with going live on Facebook, ask me anything and various other cool stuff come in your way to help you navigate this road of becoming a modern Mortgage Professional Hybrid Mortgage Professional. As you know, I've been talking a lot about that lately. Second thing is ask Jeff anything, ask GEOFF, ask Jeff anything is where you can go to leave me your question and I will try my best to take your question and answer it on the air. And then everybody's question who submitted whether you go whether you get answered on the air or not, you're all going to be added to a monthly contest for a swag box of cool stuff. From me, you know, T-shirt stickers, all kinds of cool little giveaways and time with me on the phone as well to help you with your biggest pressing problem and challenge. So with that in mind, and this week's question comes from Kevin Kylie, Kevin, what's up, shout out to you man, thanks for leaving me a question over at ask Jeff anything. So Kevin asked me other than real estate agents, what one or two other sources of business, particularly for a newer Mortgage Regenerator, what other two sources of business, what I consider pursuing for building my business. And so great question, Kevin, because listen, I don't believe that you should only have one source of business, right? There's an old saying and marketing that the worst number in businesses is one. And in the case of us talking about sources of business leads and referrals, right? If that one source of business becomes disrupted, goes out of business, becomes less effective, right? Then obviously you are disrupted equally by that. Yeah, with that said, you know, I know it's been traditional for a long time for us in the Mortgage space to look at real estate agents as a primary pillar of source of business. And I was just talking about this earlier with somebody else on a call. And I do still believe that real estate agents for me personally and for many others should be a one of the key pillars you have. Now I know there's some people out there that are anti real estate agent and that's fine, that's your choice to make. There's obviously other ways to build your mortgage business, but you're here listening to me because I'm an advocate for building productive, profitable real estate relationships. And I should probably say that again, productive and profitable real estate relationships. Because there's a lot of noise that I hear from you all out there about like, you know, how unlawful real estate agents are, how, right, would have filled in the blank. Agents are blank. And let me just propose to you that if an agent is unlawful, why? My answer to that is give them a reason to be loyal. Like so much of what's happening out there in the space is the same as lame, right? Mortgage approach sales pitch. It's clone marketing out there for loan officers and approaching real estate agents. So that said, that's my little rant there about why agents are still viable. By the way, did you know that last year, approximately 5 million total sales happened, right? Homes sold. Agents 89% of the time people still use a real estate agent. And I talk about this, of course, in my book Disruptor Die as well as even with the disruption of technology, agents are still going to be a central part of the transaction because we're not hailing an Uber, we're not ordering a pizza, we're buying a house and getting into the largest debt of our life. And there's some certain guidance and direction for people who only do that once or twice or three times in their life, they need a guide. And the same with you as a mortgage professional, they need you a guide. So while there may be disruption and tech, fintech around process, right, verification of funds, underwriting appraisal, notary and things like that, don't forget the most human company wins. It's still high tech plus high touch. Don't overlook that. So back to the question from Kevin. So that's a great question. I've often thought, like, if I was going to become an active originator again, what other sources of business would I pursue? And I have to say one that I always come back to is the divorce niche. The divorce niche, right, because I am always thinking about how do I stand out differently and not be commoditized. And you know, who makes more when you think about in the medical profession, who makes more, who makes more in sports training, who makes more in talk about attorneys, for example, who makes more generalists or specialists, specialists make more, right? So if you are a specialist in, right, divorce mortgage financing, right? Divorce real estate, well, first of all, the people that are in that situation have unique and different needs. They also see themselves differently than other people in a lot of cases and feel that they have different needs and requirements. And for those of you listening, if you've ever gone through a divorce, right, think about you. If somebody was, somebody had the mortgage divorce specialist, right, that went, and everything that went with that, that went with that, everything that went with that, wouldn't you feel like that speaks to you? Why do you think VA loans exist, veterans loans? How about first time home buyer, right, low down payment, down payment assistance, right? How about self-employed, non-QM, folks? I know it's cliché to say the riches are in the niches, but it's cliché for a reason because oftentimes clichés are true. So Kevin, to answer your question, one area I would look at would be becoming a, right, quote, certified divorce mortgage specialist. And we've had, divorce this house on a couple of times, Wendy and the gang over there from that company in Nashville, you can look them up at divorcethishouse.com. They put you through a online curriculum, education and training to get you, it's not certified that they use the term, I forget what the term is that they use. But anyway, they're a source of it, there's also divorce lending, you know, other sources out there for that, for you to find and get educated on that, you can google that, lots of different places and organizations for you to become, right, a specialist in that, designated, that's what I was looking for, a designation. In addition to that, like, how do you even approach attorneys? And it's not through the, some of the traditional means, the, you know, like coal calling and letters and all that kind of jazz. And you need a team with you and you need to know what to say and how to approach them. So I would definitely be looking at divorce, Kevin, and I would also be looking at what other, oh, I would probably also specialize in self-employed. Simply because the growth of non-QM is going to be a big thing moving forward. And in the world that we live in now, and that's ever in growing, which is the gig economy, where more and more people don't have traditional nine to five jobs, don't have traditional W2 income. That's where the non-QM loans are going to come in. And you know, a few months back, I did an episode with, um, oh my God. Who is it? Why am I blanking? Angel Oak. Thank you. Thank you very much. Angel Oak, right? And so they're obviously one of the premier non-QM providers in the country. And you can go back and look them up for if you want more education about that. So that'd be two places I look, Kevin. Hope that helps. All right. Let me transition into what we're talking about with today's episode. And it's a bit of a rant today. I'm talking about email, email. That is the last time you took a look at your email, your, and by the way, what I mean by this specifically is your automated out of office email reply. So I've done a little bit of an informal study, if you will, and I've collected together a couple of responses of emails that I've received from mortgage lenders when they're out of the office. Now how do I get these? Well, you know, I obviously have a number of mortgage professionals on my email list. And when I send out updates about the podcast, if they're automated out of office reply is on, well, I get these responses from them. And I want you to remember something or consider something is that you're always branding. You're always branding. What is the impression that you're leaving that you're creating? And maybe it's time for you to do a little bit of an audit. Maybe it's time for you to opt in to your automated out of office email response. Maybe it's time for you to have somebody check it out and ask them, what do they think? Because you tell me, when did you actually put together your automated out of office response? How long ago was that? When's the last time you looked at it? Have you had anybody check it out yourself to give you feedback on that? Let's talk about a couple that I have here. Now, keep in mind, this is from somebody who is a mortgage originator and they're out of office is turned on. So that means whoever is emailing them an agent, a client, a prospect, this is the email response being received. Are you ready? Here we go. Thank you for emailing. I'm out of the office at this time. Okay, so far, not so bad. I will be checking email intermittently and returning messages when I can. Thanks and make it a great day. That's it. Now, if you received that email and you were in the middle of a transaction, right, of a sizable loan and you got that email, what do you feel is missing from that? I mean, first of all, it actually doesn't even have the person's name at the bottom. Literally, it's missing that. And I'll get back to you when I can. Thanks. And oh, by the way, let me just point out in this email, it says thanks and make all caps. It a great all caps day exclamation, exclamation, exclamation. By the way, intermittently is spelled wrong. There's a little thing called spelled check, right, or Grammarly if you haven't heard of that free Chrome extension and help you make you a better writer. So guys, what's the impression this email is creating? Like, let me read another one. Let me, you tell me if you think this one's better. Astrix. Stop. Please read. End of Astrix. I will be out of the office with limited access to email and voicemail until Monday, December 4th. Not to worry. For immediate attention, please call my team at number, phone number, or email, right? The such and such team is available seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Thanks. Signed. Lone Officer. Immediately under Lone Officer's signature, address, email, website, link to bio, NMLS information, links to social to follow, connect, and then further down below specific links to website features that says, click the blue links below, apply now online, document upload, commonly required mortgage documents and explanations, oh, by the way, what do you think's there? If I click that link, it goes over to a page on the website that provides further explanation about some of the additional documents that are normally going to be required in the process. Like that? Feel that one's better? I think so. Are you learning anything now about what you could add to your out of office email? What do you think is missing for you? Now, there's some other ones out here that are good. They're basic, right? Hello, and thank you for your email. I'm in appointments. It's actually abbreviated, APPTS, I'm in apps for the remainder of the day. If you need assistance in my absence, please contact such an email address. You can also text me at. I will do my best to respond as soon as possible. Thank you. Name of Lone Officer. And then, of course, disclaimers at the bottom. Let me see if I can find another one here that might be. Aha. Hello. I'm currently out of the office in unavailable typo misspelled. During my absence, please redirect all emails to this person on my team or call my office at. Thank you and have a blessed day. Again, I don't want to come across as being overly critical. I've been guilty of this myself. And I think we're missing an opportunity to create an impression. Here's another one. Thank you for your email. If this is in reference to pre-approval, please contact such and such person at email address or by calling phone number. If this is in reference to anything else, please contact someone else who handles everything else. Email phone number for immediate assistance. Thank you. Hmm. Let me try one more and we'll talk about how to make these better. All right. Hello. Hello. And by the way, this is in the text in this email is red in color and it's in italics. The entire two or three sentences, all italics, all one single line not separated by paragraphs. Hello. Thank you for your email. I'll be out of the office from 11, 12, 21 with limited access to phone and email. Now I respond to your messages as soon as I can upon my return, 11, 15, 21. For urgent matters, please kindly contact this person. Have an awesome day. Thank you. No links. Now this is multiple examples you've heard of me give right now. There was only one example, right, where there was some personality put in there that said, right, the such and such team is available, right? Seven days a week, eight to eight, right? Here's the links, my website. Here's the links to the docs to upload to apply, my social media links, my whatever. Missed opportunity. What impression are you creating? Guys, same as lame. We engagement and interaction is an opportunity to create moments of impact. Now I thought I'd do a little research and find out what are some examples of good out of office emails and I found HubSpot who had some examples of funny out of office emails and I'm not implying that you should just be funny, right? But I am implying that you should have personality. And remember, people would rather be entertained than educated. And to the degree you can be entertaining or meaning have a personality, create a connection, the more trust you're going to build, the more like ability, the more referability, right? So what should you be putting on your out of office message? Now clearly it should have some basics. You've heard the basics. A quick, I'm out of the office, phrase is helpful, the data time range that you'll be out is helpful, who to reach out to in case the sender needs immediate attention. And by the way, how you structure it and how you write it I think is very important. Meaning is it easy to read? Is it a long run on sentence? Is there typos and misspellings? Is it grammatically correct? Is it structured that it's easy to read on a mobile device? Which means creating spacing and perhaps adding some bold, where appropriate. So putting it all together, right? Some of the basics are right. You've already heard, thanks for your email. I'm currently out of the office until here's the date if you need help email my colleague. By the way, the other thing that I didn't really notice in here, even when it said if you have questions, please email this person. It doesn't say who they are. Like this one right here, for urgent matters, please kindly contact so and so. Well, who are they? And what if I can't reach them? Please contact so and so. Well, what I would love to see is, here's who to contact and like based on your need, right? If this is regarding a loan in process, please contact, right? Suzy Smith, here's your phone number. Here's a email. By the way, you can text her at this number, right? For loans in process, right? For new loans or to thought on online application, like you heard in that one example, right? Click here to be taken to my mobile friendly online app, right? If it's urgent, right? So you have this stack of people, right, who are lined up and ready to handle things while you're out of the office. And I'm going down a little bit deep on this right now, and you may not think it's that big of a deal, but let me just tell you, perception is everything. What do people say about you when you're not in the room? What do people say when they get this email, right, of completely vagueness with no structure, all written in red, all italicized that I can barely even read on a mobile phone. And I just like, hey, I'm out of the office with limited access to phone and I'll respond as soon as I can when I get back in five days, right? And I know the tendency is to think this isn't a big deal and I'm here to tell you it is. So maybe you want to rethink your out of office automated response email and put something of personality in there. Here's a couple of examples. Have fun, by the way, with people. Okay, here's some funny out of office messages. I'll email you back once I've defrosted, okay? And in this example right here, there's a picture of the forecast for Mount Hood that shows three to five inches of snow, five to seven feet the next day, 22 degrees, right? And the person's writing got to go, my fingers are frostbitten. If you really need me, either get a shovel and dig me out of here or reach out to my colleague Anna, who's not frozen under snow, under snow with frostbitten fingers at, here's how Anna can help you. Here's Anna's super powers. If your email client allows it, you could just write, you could put in an image and I'll put a link to this in the show notes just so you can see it for fun, but visual content is essential to conveying emotion, right, to conveying a message and so forth. Here's another one. I'll get back to you when I return to civilization. If you're traveling to a remote mountainous area, why not jab some fun at your lack of Wi-Fi in your auto responder plus that makes it less likely that people expected immediate response or continue to email you after the first try. Here's an example. Sorry I missed you, I'm unable to get back to my email right this second. Why? I'm on a backpacking trip, so I'm having a spam, really good water and trail mix. You should see the stars out here. I'll get back to you when I return to civilization or do an area with Wi-Fi or to the office on May 10th, whichever comes first. If you need help right now, email, right, Anna, on my team, if this is your need, email contact this person. If this is your need, email contact this person. If you're, listen, people, right, you're allowed to take vacation. Why not? If you're on vacation, if you provide confidence and certainty that their needs are still going to be met with you out of the office, I think it's okay to say, hey, I'm out backpacking in the Himalayas surviving on trail mix and good spam, right? Here's another example. Hey, I'm on vacation until July 18th, if you need to reach me, here's what you'll need to do. Travel to my homeland of Florida, climb the highest peak of the tallest mountain, find a rare flower, no specifics, of course, to be cheating, put the flower back because the old hiking rule goes, leave everything as you've found it. When you understand that flower, you'll know how to reach me, trust me, you'll know. If your message requires a response faster than that, please email dot dot dot dot. Here's a good one. My favorite right here. This is the response to the automated email, respond to right. It basically says, I know I'm supposed to say I'll have limited access to email, but I'm currently out of the office on vacation. Oh my gosh, that's funny. That said, I promise my wife I'm going to try to disconnect, get away and enjoy our vacation as much as possible, so I'm going to experiment with something new. I'm going to leave the decision in your hands. If your email is truly urgent and you need a response while I'm on vacation, please resend it to interrupt your vacation at blank dot com and I'll try to respond it promptly. If you think someone else at XYZ company might be able to help you feel free to contact my assistant, blah, blah, blah, blah, and she'll point you in the right direction. Otherwise I'll respond when I return to warmer guards. Very interesting. Very interesting. You can take what you want from this. Again, I'm not saying you want to come across as sarcastic, but listen, be honest and transparent and have a little fun with it if you can. Here's another one. The bad news I'm out of the office. The good news I'm out of the office. You can show just how thrilled you are about your vacation while still providing an apology sort of. Here's the example. Hey there, I've got good news and bad news for you. Let's go with the bad first. Bad news is I'm out of the office. Good news is I'm out of the office and enjoying Cancun. If you can't wait for a response, my colleague will be happy to take care of you. Just contact them here. I'll be back on February 7th. There's other examples here. I'm going to put them in the show notes. Like you said, you could probably grab some creative ideas out of this, but look, guys, get creative. Have a personality. Make it fun to do business with you. Do an audit of your automated out-of-office replies. Some of these are just very, very much in need of improvement. Okay. That's my rant for the day. Let me close it out by saying this. We're entering or we've already entered a market, right? You guys are in a... You know what's happening. Refers are down and look, you want more referrals from real estate agents. You want more relationships. You want more referrals. As you know, there's lots of you, lots of loan officers going after agents, by and large bringing no value, showing up at the same as lame, and it's become a number game for you. That's how agents respond to you with numbness and no response, because there's no unique value offered to them. That's the same message of, we closed in six days, try me, I work 24-7, all that kind of stuff. Therefore, loan officers need a system to rise above the noise, right? To not become a number and to get agent relationships and referrals. We provide a turnkey proven platform to help loan officers do that and do that at scale. As a matter of fact, I think of two of our members, Kerry Cobb, who's first year in the business, approximately 75 loans, 40% of them came exclusively from our platform, Chris Cogel, who within six months or less, closed 25 loans and over $5 million in production. How do we do that? We do that with the MyAgentClasses platform, which is a turnkey, completely done for you platform, for you to get in front of agents at scale by teaching agent classes, be it in person, be it over Zoom, and by the way, this is for people who've never delivered a class before. This is for people who think, how can I deliver a class? I'm not an expert on that topic. We've solved all of that for you because everything is provided for you. The PowerPoints, the train, the trainer videos, the speaker notes, the handouts, the invitations, the emails, the SMS text messages, the flyers, you name it. All you need to do is turn the key, practice the presentation a couple of times, and join our weekly coaching call, and you too will be rising above the noise, getting agent conversations and referrals. Want to learn more? Go to mortgagemarketing.pro, check out the short video, and if it's for you, we'll see on the other side. If not, you just close the browser window and you keep on going. Mortgagemarketing.pro, check it out, love to see you over there. That's it for this week's episode, and I appreciate you tuning in as always, and listen, we are getting ready to release some of the guest interviews that I've been doing, and I'm really excited to bring those people your way, so stay tuned for that. If you're up for it, hey, feel free to leave me a review wherever you're listening to this podcast. Until then, we'll see you on the next one. Bye for now. Hey, guys, what's up, real quick? You've heard about the mortgagemarketing.pro membership before, and I just want to quickly remind you of that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our mortgagemarketing.pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you, agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, attract and convert agents into referral partners, plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class, getting agents, butts and seeds, partnering with affiliates, real easy, but that's not all. You'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top L.O.'s authors, speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market. And as an extra bonus for limited time, for all new members, you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from 8 to 50 transactions in the last 12 months, and we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagedmarketing.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 mortgagedmarketing.pro.