What I’m Feeling and Working On

In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with the real estate agents is essential for success. However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge. With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections. Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read. Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals. And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business. To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy of the case study today. You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals and how you can, too. Don't miss out. Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Hey, everybody, what's up? Jeff Zimfer. Welcome to this episode of mortgage marketing radio. This is not your normal episode. There was no interview today. This is just me. Just me and wanting to come and share with you some things that I've been thinking about working through things that are on my heart and my mind and various challenges or struggles or resistance that I know I've been facing as I go about the daily business of doing what it is that I hope to do, try to do. So maybe this will relate. Hopefully you can find some context and something relevant for you in here. Quite honestly, this is pretty much off the cuff, a couple bullet points I wanted to share with you. So where do I start? Where do I start? I start with, I guess, just telling you lately where I've been personally, right? Where I've been personally the last few weeks has been challenged, emotionally challenged. You ever get in a situation or ever be doing something where for some reason you start questioning what you're doing? Let me just get right to it and say this is that part of what I do, you may or may not know what I often ask some of the people I interview, what's your superpower? And if you were to ask me that question in the context of you, the listener, mortgage professionals, I would say one of my superpowers is I definitely know how to help equip and accelerate the process of loan officers succeeding at a higher level and getting agent relationships and agent referrals. I also happen to have a good knowledge, working knowledge and experience level with succeeding on the digital front, right? So you've probably heard me talking about this concept of the hybrid loan officer over the past several weeks. And as I refresh on that, the hybrid loan officer is one who succeeds in the more traditional framework of relationships, referrals, referral partners, past clients and all that kind of stuff. But one who also leverages modern technology aimed at connecting with people digitally because let's face it, there is a healthy amount of consumer, of people, attention, people including realtors, referral partners, right, people who can send you business, a healthy amount of their attention on the digital platforms as well. So I serve both audiences. I help in both categories, as a matter of fact, I wrote a book that, you know, if you've not heard of it, it's called Disruptor Die, how to survive and thrive, the digital real estate shift. If you want to get that book, you can go to getdisruptordie.com. But back to my focus for here today, I would have I been struggling with, I've been struggling with, what do I really want to be known for? Where do I really want to make an impact? Who do I really want to help and how? And I've been struggling with because I've felt the pressure of what I, my superpower of helping loan officers succeed with real estate agents. I have felt that that isn't that sexy, that the more sexy avenue, the one that seems to be more attractive because this is what all the gurus are saying. This is what you see every day that you've got to be on video and you've got to do social media and you've got to be here and to see the TikTok dancers, you see the reels, you see, you know, fill in the blank, right? And you feel, how many of you can relate? You feel the pressure to be there, to do that, to show up, to be like some of the people you're seeing do what they do. And I myself have been promoting that message for quite a while, right, that you need to be on video and that, you know, all that stuff that goes with it. And I'm not saying that I don't agree that you need to have some level of presence online, Google reviews, for example, some type of a presence on social media. If only for the sake of differentiation. Now, if you heard my more and more recent podcast with Marcus Sheridan, which is how to use content marketing to ignite your business, you know, Marcus makes an excellent case for leveraging content marketing. And that, I asked him a question, I said, do you think you need to use video? Do you think you could be successful without video, in this case, as just an example video, right? And the answer was, yes, I think you can be successful without video. And he went on to explain that if maybe that, what that looks like is maybe you've got somebody who has another platform, maybe you have a podcast, maybe you have a blog, maybe you have, you know, some other type of media. But the rest of his answer was, if you don't today have some type of way, a medium platform to get in front of people, become known, connect, and engage, well, first of all, it's like hard to connect and engage with you. And then secondly, how do I differentiate you? And as my friend Kyle Draper posted recently, your competitive edge is your story, is you. And to show up and have a competitive edge, to share your story, to allow people to connect with you at some level, it takes showing up and, you know, and it takes having the courage to learn these new skills, to take on these new tools of, you know, the new, the modern media, if you will, on whatever medium. Now, what's, and I'm working through this with myself personally right now, real-time life. I feel like I'm torn, right? And I've had some people this week who've helped me with some conversations that have helped me kind of get back in the right focus for this. And so back to, you know, knowing that that's relevant and trying to identify where can I most serve people. And what is, what really works, you know, call myself the chief's truth teller for the podcast, right? Okay. So am I telling the truth? Have I been telling the truth? Let me just tell you the truth and, and how I've learned it both for myself and talking to you. Others interviewing hundreds of loan officers and, and here's the thing. I think we, the thing we've got to remember to do and maintain through this whole thing is we've got to remember to maintain our own true identity. What do I mean by that? I mean, if you're doing something just because somebody else is doing it, and yet it's not sitting right with you, if you don't believe it, and that's going to show up, you won't continue to do it first and foremost, and you probably won't do it that well. And then you'll stop doing it. And this brings me back to some conversations I've had this week with some, some people who I respect. And it also makes me think of the, the, the loan officers that I've interviewed and, and without fail of the top producing originators that I've interviewed and like I said, there's been a lot. 80% of them at a minimum, if not more, have all had a more traditional foundation to how they've gotten to where they did in terms of volume and units. Like I, I think of my, my, my friend Michelle Odo, Michelle for your listening. So Michelle, last time I checked in 2020, she did $134 million. Pretty good producer? Yeah, I think so. And I ask these people when I interview them, what's your number one source of business? And by and large, the most common answer I get back is, what do you think? Real estate agents. The second most common answer I get is typically something like past client database marketing. And then the third answer, I'm seeing show up more frequently, but not to the same scale as percentage of business. But still showing up more frequently is social media, digital marketing. This is true for real estate agents that I talk to as well, right? And so what do you do? What do you do? Is it one over the other? Or is it both? Is it being a hybrid? And for me, the answer, well, the answer's got to be whatever it is for you personally, right? I mean, I think of conversations I had this week with a friend of mine, Ryan. Ryan Miracle, who's one of our board's marketing pro members. Ryan is going to make upwards of $400,000 this year. And his presence on social media is very little. In terms of the sources of business that he has, right? His number one source of business is real estate agents, relationships, right? And by the way, Ryan's a very smart digital marketer. I mean, the number one way that he gets in front of agents at scale is through teaching agent classes. My friend Michelle Odo as well, $134 million producer teaches agent classes, does agent events. I could give you a story after story after story, Shishank Shikar, my buddy who came to this country with literally less than $100 in this pocket, started getting his name his face out there by teaching agent classes. I think of Liz LaFore, somebody who I work with who came into the business with, right? Not a lot of agents, perhaps shortly thereafter by working with her, added over 30 agents as referral partners, closed well over 20 loans. As she said, it's by far the best way that she was able to get agent referrals, a matter of fact, just this past week, she reported in about a class that she did where she got in front of I think 36 realtors. I think of Kerry Cobb, who's only a year in to her mortgage business, brand new, started applying the old school tactic of teaching agent classes and has since been in front of hundreds of agents, has taken a quantum leak in her business and her production has grown in her confidence. By the way, none of these people are really chasing agents. What they do is they let the dust settle in the agents who really like the personality of the loan officer who like the value that's being given these agents then seek you out. They are attracted to you because they want more of what you're offering because it's different than rates and service, which is not a competitive advantage. Let me correct myself, service, let's take service. Service can be a competitive advantage, but no one actually knows if you fulfill on your promise of service until they engage in a transaction. Getting them to a transaction is the first step and sometimes the hardest step. If we're talking about getting better results from real estate agents, getting better agents, getting better quality referrals, being able to attract agents instead of chase agents, not necessarily cold calling unless you choose to, not dealing with lower quality agents than you want to, this concept I call reverse prospecting, then at some point that's going to take an in-person interaction in a lot of cases. Not always, even the folks that I've interviewed, my buddy Eric Braun, not your average lender who built his agent relationships initially over Instagram, but guess what he does? He moves those relationships to in-person meetings through his events, from his brewery events, and things like that, and if you're listening to Eric shout out to you. If I could, let me take you on just a quick little journey here for me. When I started as an originator, I was making three big mistakes. Mistake number one, I was pursuing agents non-stop. For some of you who are listening to this and you're like, I've done classes before, they didn't work out or, hey, I don't like agents or the agents are loyal or whatever story you want to come up with. I'm asking you to set that story aside for a moment. So back to what my problem was, I was consistently chasing agents, because I felt like, oh my God, if I'm not chasing and pursuing agents, how am I going to get referrals? That was some mistake number one. Number two was, when refinance booms happened, what do we do? We neglect the existing relationships we have. You guys know it's true, we've all done it, and then you've got to start all over again. Or what happens is, because you don't get clear on who you're willing to work with or want to work with, because you're willing to tolerate anything, right? You get what you tolerate in life. You have some bad experiences with realtors, somebody treats you poorly, and all of a sudden over time, like myself, you begin to develop a belief that says, you know what, screw agents, it's not worth it. I'm going to go run some Facebook ads. I'm going to go like, you know, create a YouTube channel. I'm going to go be the TikTok, L.O. whatever. Again, there's a hundred different ways for you to grow your mortgage business, okay? Figuratively speaking. You've got to get clear on what it is that you can do, and what are you willing to do? Two different things, okay? What I had was the challenge of spreading myself too thin. I started this business in 2003. I was giving it a box of business cards, and I was like, here you go. Go get yourself some realtor referrals, right? I had no system, right? And then ultimately what happens is you get all those mistakes I just mentioned, and then you get a bad case of what I call BSO. BSO. Anybody know what BSO is? It's bright, shiny object syndrome. Yes, that's right. Bright, shiny object syndrome. I know, I know, that's funny. So what happens with BSO is you try and implement too many things at once, right? You've got all these ideas. Here's what I find a lot of L.O.'s are caught in this trap. I want to do Facebook ads. I want to do Google ads. I want to go consumer direct, man. Financial professionals, divorce attorneys, social media, and content marketing. I want to do it all. So you're busy as hell. You're going to do it all, right? Here's the problem. Every idea you have that you want to implement is like a bridge. So if you could picture in your mind a bridge, you're looking at a bridge, and it's got two sides to it. On one side is where you are, and on the other side across that bridge is where you want to go, grow your business, get more referrals, whatever, make more money, right? So there's a bridge. These bright, shiny objects, all the ideas I just ran through, each one of those ideas is a bridge that you have to build, you have to implement, and don't even talk to me about, oh, I can outsource this or that or whatever, everything takes time and attention and focus. So what happens? Bright, shiny object, too many bridges, diluted focus, diluted effort, confusion, poor results, income rollercoaster, and burnout. Can I get a witness? Anybody been there? What I realized back in 2004, a year into the business, I have a HELOC out on my house, my wife said home with her first baby, and I need to pay the damn bills. What I realized was, I had to change, you know, Jim Roan, one of my favorite trainers of all, said in order for things to change, you have to change, can't change the seasons, can't change the weather, can't change you, can't change how you respond. Change I made was one bridge at a time. Why? I would focus. I would actually make real progress because I would be focusing. I would learn how to systematize that bridge, that initiative, at some point it would be systematized, and it would be, if I could automate it and delegate it, not always the case, but at least I needed a proven system, unlike chasing realtors, one Z2Z, you know, doing a class every three months or twice a year, whatever, that's not a system, right? That's a crapshoot. So only by focusing on one bridge at a time, could I achieve significant results with less stress, which would actually add more income stability to me? Because I was actually able to move the needle, you can't be great at 10 things at once. So for me, I made a conscious decision that I was going to focus on real estate agents. Let me explain why. Let me make a case for real estate agents, just like an attorney makes a case. I want to make a case for real estate agents. The 2020 NAR profile of home buyers and sellers reported that there were 5.6 million homes sold in 2020. Do you want to guess what percentage of those homes were purchased through a real estate agent? Anybody want to guess? In your head right now, what are you saying? Hmm, go on, go on, put your numbers in. All right, you can see, thanks for playing along. Guys, 89% of people, of 5.6 million people who bought a home in 2020, used a realtor to transact that purchase, okay? And by the way, that is a share that has steadily increased back in 2001, 69% of people used a realtor to purchase the home. That has been going up steadily year after year. Call it 90% of the people, 5 million people who buy a house, they're using real estate agent. That is what I call an oil well, an oil well that continues to feed you business. If the dynamics of the relationship are correct, if it's the right alignment for you between you and that real estate agent, that is why the bulk of the top producers that I've interviewed on my podcast, that is why 80% of them have realtors as a core component of their business. Now it may be at a little bit varying degrees for some or others, but by and large, that's been the core of their business. Even with digital marketing, social media, is that going to change? Maybe. But to what degree are realtors going away? No. Is the industry becoming fragmented? Yes. Are there more choices for consumers? Yes. Is there more confusion for consumers? Yes. Do they look at agents the need for agents in a different light than they did 10 years ago? Yes. But the data has proven that what they want at the moment of decision, at the moment of submitting an offer, we all know they don't need an agent to find a house. We all know they don't need an agent to like view homes online and all that, but they do need an agent to represent them to be their fiduciary, to be the guide and guide them along the way and help them navigate, which as we if so often say is the largest financial decision anyone will make in their life, folks, that's different than ordering an Uber. That's different than ordering DoorDash. Yes, you can 100% rely on technology and automation for a $10 transaction, not for a half a million transaction, right? That's why we still need people involved in this. That's why I put my initial primary focus on real estate agents is because I needed to make money fast. I needed to pay the bills and feed my kid, right? And I needed to get in front of as many agents as I possibly could. And I have found that the way to do that is to reach more agents in less time. What that means is not onesy-toozy, cool calling, not broker previews, randomly meeting agents, not open houses, not to say that you shouldn't do those activities. It depends where you are in your career. But most importantly is that your number one goal, if you are looking to grow your purchased money business, your purchase loans, and you want to do it efficiently, cost effectively, and you want to do it quickly, show me a better ROI if you're using a proper system for getting in front of 5.6 million home buyers. You want to run Facebook ads? Okay? Great. Run a Facebook ad. The average person who comes in via a Facebook ad, the online home buyer, right? Typically, if you're lucky, three months out. Most often, 6, 9, 12 months out from actually making a purchase. And it's not even so much that is the sifting and sorting that you often have to go through to even find the real buyers. Okay? Now, I'm not saying they don't have their place, they do. But I'm saying you better have the budget, you better have the right temperament, you better have the back end systems and automation, and the long-term focus to be able to survive that game, okay? So where does this leave us? It leaves us with why teaching agent classes? Let me summon up this way. It puts you in control with predictability. In front of, it's all math, get in front of 10, 20, 30 agents a month. You're already good at talking to them. I can help you get better. You're already good at reaching out to them. I can help you with your value proposition. If you simply let the law of large numbers work in your favor, law of large numbers, right? You'll increase your odds of winning and converting. So the agent classes work better than anything I've seen. I challenge anybody to convince me of something else. I would love to see it. You don't chase agents. It's reverse prospecting. I talk to you, elbows every single week, who tell me, yeah, I don't really chase agents anymore. They just come to me. It's the ones who want to work with me are going to seek me out. You can play that game if you're in front of enough agents at over a period of time, adding value and differentiating yourself. You can't necessarily play that game if you're showing up desperate, if you're showing up with your handout, if you're showing up with the same old lame script and pitch that most LLs pitch out there, great rates, great servers, try me out. How was your weekend? Got any buyers for me, right? A stronger value proposition is what a well-crafted agent class with the right topic. By the way, I'm not talking about CE classes per se. I'm not talking about FHA programs. I'm not talking about bond programs and down payment assistance. The latest hot DPA program that's coming out. Not talking about those. I'm talking about topics that help agents build their business that actually have to do with what they're focused on, which is how do I make more money in my business? How do I learn how to become a relevant, real estate agent because the agents are being disrupted too, and they want the help and they're not getting it from the broker in most cases, okay? So if we show up and say, great, you want to succeed with digital, you want to know how to do video, you want to have a better business plan, you want to fill in the blank, right? I can help you. I have the content. And all your only job is to show them the way, to point them in the right direction and be a messenger of good news. And that changes the game. That lowers the resistance. That increases the conversion. That levels up the impact you have with them. And of course with agent classes, scalability, you can reach more agents in less time, thus get to the agents that will actually work with you, right? How many more agents do you want to add to your roster right now? In this market, the likelihood is you might need more than you've traditionally had in the past because it's spread thin, because of the lack of inventory, because of all the extra agents that have come into the market, there's less pie to go around. And some of the bigger agents and the teams, they're taking bigger share of the pie. And if you want to get an audience with those bigger agents and teams, you need a better value proposition. And it's not going to be pay for my Zillolids, okay? The name of the game is conversations. How many conversations can you have with agents? And with agent classes, we can do that at scale. And I'd rather not reinvent the wheel. I'd rather just what do other top producers do and how can I duplicate that and make that my own? That's called modeling, something I learned while I was at Tony Robbins. But I'm looking at the list of my colleagues, Michelle Castle, Guild Mortgage, closing 300 loans. She has done agent classes for years, okay? It's a great top of funnel activity for her. My buddy Chris Cogill from Movement Mortgage, it's his number one source of agent engagement. Last year, he closed 102 loans for $20 million, all from teaching agent classes. What's $20 million worth to you in income? My buddy Andy Passmore, Security Federal Bank, three classes, 135 agents, 30 meetings, 12 referrals, a million dollars in loans. So I don't think it's an argument of does teaching agent classes work. I think it's a question of, will you apply this framework to your business? Or will you be, you know, basically there's two types of L.O.'s, there's like, you know, the hustler, Debbie the hustler, who keeps working aimlessly, you know, rollercoaster ride up and down chasing, chasing, and then there's Judy, right? She's all chilled out, income stability, peace of mind, agents seek her out and send her referrals and remain loyal. Again, what I've seen most often happen is people don't follow a proven system. They shoot from the hip, they wing it, they throw something together, they think agents are going to attend a class about FHA or Mortgage 101 or whatever, and they're not. Well actually, they will, but not the right ones, and not enough of the ones. And that, by the way, isn't differentiating enough, either for you, okay? So I guess what I'm saying is, I'm a believer in both, and everything has its time and place. And there's a lot of people talking about digital marketing and all that kind of stuff and content marketing, and it is incredibly important. And it depends where you're at with that, your desire, your aptitude, right? Your capabilities, your willingness to want to take that on, your consistency of implementing and putting out content on a consistent basis. And knowing that's the long game, right? And it's important for you to do to remain relevant. And since I wrote a book, Disruptor Die, but I also, my number one passion or purpose in life is to help L.O.'s succeed. Having been in L.O. for 10 years, I know what it's like firsthand. And I guess I'm showing up here today just to wear my heart on my sleeve and say that I haven't done a good job of talking about what I do besides, you guys know me as interviewing people. That's cool. That's great. I get a lot of value out of that. I hope you do too. But what I really enjoy is working with L.O.'s to watch their life change, to watch their business change, to see the lights go on. And I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not saying it's flip a switch or it's a magic wand. It's not. I'm saying it's worth it. And I'm saying of all the things I'm passionate about, that ranks at the top of the list for the sole reason of that I've seen it work for years. I've seen it work for all types of L.O.'s in all parts of the country. If that loan officer is open-minded, if that loan officer shows up, rolls their sleeves up, does the work and it's willing to be coachable and willing to adapt and learn and keep going even when it ain't easy. Because it's not. I think that's part of the allure of the gurus with social media, digital marketing. Is it all looks pretty easy? It looks like, hey man, just grab a camera and record yourself. You know what I mean? Put yourself out there, doing the dance, I'm on vacation, whatever, live in large, right? I think social media is incredibly hard. I think showing up and being you, finding your voice and putting yourself out there, I think that's hard. I think that takes time. And I think it's important too. But I also think it's, let me say this, it's harder than I thought. What I thought might work, maybe it doesn't work as well as I hoped it does. It's own learning, I'm evolving. And I'm also, I guess, coming to you now, my listeners with an invitation. We have a small group, some pretty cool people who subscribe to what I just laid out for you in terms of having real estate agents be a primary focus. They've bought into that and they've implemented the strategies that we provide for them over the last, some of them, then we've been together for three, four years. And we meet every week and we hold each other accountable, we collaborate, we talk about what's working, what's not working. We hold each other accountable on actually doing agent classes, be it over Zoom, some do them over Zoom still, some do them in person, some are starting to do hybrids, some are getting into live streaming. But ultimately the takeaway is you're getting yourself in front of real estate agents. And I'm in a place now, I've made some changes in my career that I can now open this up to you more, more loan officers who are interested in going down this path together. And if that's you, if you feel led to learn more about this, then let's talk. Maybe there's a fit for you, I don't know. But if you want to learn more, you can schedule a call with me. You can go to this URL, myagentclass.com. I'll put it in the show notes as well. Myagentclass.com and grab a time on my calendar, let's see if I can help you. That's it. Hope you enjoyed this different episode. I'd love to know what else you guys want to hear and learn from me. We've got the podcast group for this, you know, in Facebook, we've got a podcast group over there. If you haven't joined yet, jump in there. If you're listening to this, you're already in the podcast group, hey, let me know what you thought of this episode. And where else you need help? Where do you need the most help? I'll close out on this is, you know, whenever I ask people, people come into the podcast groups, a matter of fact, there's a questionnaire you fill out. What's your number one business challenge? 70% of the time? I need more referrals. I need more purchase business. I need to get better with real estate agents. I've got some lousy agents. I've got not enough agents. My agent's retired. My agent's sleeping with my lender, right, whatever. It's one of those things that just is going to remain a constant. If you've agreed that real estate agents should be a pillar of your business and you just want a more efficient means of getting better results from those real estate agents, while in conjunction with that, learning the modern marketing skills of a hybrid loan officer, which we also talk about on those weekly calls. You know, Liz, she's got a YouTube channel that she's grown. She's already gotten deals off her YouTube channel. Other Liz, Liz Reese, she's got an Instagram presence that she's doing well with and she's getting deals from Instagram. Janelle, she goes Facebook live every single week and she highlights a local business. It's called Love Where You Live. And she gets leads and deals from her live streams. The list goes on and on. Ryan, the other gentleman I talked about before, he's one of our class superstars when he teaches his classes virtually. He's getting in front of 100 agents out of time. And by the way, it's not about the number, it's not about 100. It's really better to have 20 or 30, right? But anyway, those are some of the people that are in this small elite group that we have and it might be right for you, I don't know. But go to myaginclass.com, grab a time on my calendar and let's see if it is. All right, that's it for this one. I'll see you guys on the next one. I appreciate you very much. Go out there and make something magical happen. 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 of that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchase loans. You need to fill your pipeline with purchase business. Let's just face it, agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you. Well, good news. Our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling. Done for you agent classes, expert training videos, a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you, everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market, 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 LOs, 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 eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months. And we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents. So what are you waiting for? You can check out more at mortgagemarketing.pro, see more of the success stories there. And if you feel compelled to do so, book a call, we'll have a chat, we'll see if it's a fit. Don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now. Head over to mortgagemarketing.pro.