What is a NextGen Mortgage Originator?

Hey, everybody. What's up, Jeff? Zimford coming to you once again for another episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio. Thanks for tuning in. Really, really appreciate you being here. If you are so inclined and want to scroll and find the place to leave a review for the podcast, I greatly appreciate it. Let me know what and if you do, leave a review. Just DM me on Facebook. You can go over and find me at Mortgage Marketing Radio. Search up the group there. Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. That's just for listeners where we do extra cool stuff. Just for you. Let me know what you left a review in there. I'll put you on my short list as we're bringing the swag back. Hopefully that entices you a little bit to consider leaving a review if you've been enjoying this podcast, this production for some time. We are approaching 300 interviews and stay tuned for something pretty cool to do around that. Before I get into this week's special guest, I want to bring to you another success story from the streets. This one comes from Mitch Tuga. Mitch has been one of our my agent class members for going on a couple years now. This is something that Mitch shared with me some time ago. He recently presented one of our classes. How to get more listings in a low inventory market. He presented it to an entire brokerage that invited you to speak in front of a brokerage, right, of real estate agents. Of course, he says it went great since then he's been asked to return to that brokerage every single month. What he does is he follows our system in our process. He puts in QR code at the end of the presentation to invite agents for a conversation as a follow up to the information he presented. Now, you hear me talk a lot about solving problems and becoming part of their business. If you want to earn their business, we know agents today. Of course, one of the biggest struggles is listings. So what if you showed up in your local market and presented some ideas for them that maybe they already knew about, but just you reminded them and that motivated and prompted them to actually apply to go take action on that one idea and you're the person that got them to do that. What if you presented to them some ideas that they didn't even know about, right, like this one cool video CMA idea we have where an agent used this idea and listed $11 million in listings in just 90 days following this one idea. What if once again, you were the person that brought that idea to them. Would you get more yeses on your requests for meetings and conversations? Of course, you would. You know the answer. And in Mitch's case, because he delivered value first, how to get more listings in a low inventory market is then a 10 different ideas on that. And at the end, put up a very subtle ask, right? Hey, if you guys want to go deeper, you want to learn more about any your one big idea today, go ahead and hold the phone up to the screen, scan the QR code and book a time on my calendars. We can talk further. What happened for Mitch? Six agents immediately asked him. Would they would he be open to meet with them afterwards to learn more to go deeper and ultimately to talk about working together? You see gay guys and gals, the name of the game is let's move from Solister and vendor to partner and here. And we have to help them solve problems. And leading with education is the primary most effective, efficient way that you can do that at scale, just like it did work for Mitch and many others. Would you like to see more success stories? Select to learn more about our platform, my agent classes, the mortgage marketing program membership. Very simple. You can click the link in your show notes that says learn more about agent classes. You can go to mortgage marketing.pro and grab a time on my calendar and let's talk. This isn't for everybody. This is a work program. But it might be a fit for you if you're willing to do the work, if you're coachable. And you're willing to follow a proven system and path, just like Mitch and many others. Mortgage marketing.pro or technical link in the show notes. Okay, so this week, my special guest is who's fast becoming a friend, a person I have known now for, I don't know, multiple years. And we've engaged a number of times over the years on different projects and strategies and just conversations. And I think this is his third time back to the podcast. And for good reason, who am I talking about? I am talking about Michael McHallister, who is the founder of empower L.O., which is a digital marketing agency that helps mortgage professionals run ads direct to consumer, right? Google paper click ads and those types of things to generate a steady stream of qualified leads. And this conversation of Michael and I have is about the next generation loan officer or what I'll effectively refer to as the next gen mortgage originator. Let's shrink it up and just call it next gen, right? Because that's the cool thing to do. So what are we talking about here? What is the next gen mortgage originator, right? It's one who possesses or embraces both the traditional sources of business like database for four partners and online and combines that with an online presence using digital tools and platforms to attract and engage consumers directly. You know what I'm talking about when you hear that. And in this episode, Michael and I, we unpack both the importance of becoming a next gen originator. And what is the process to get there? What are the steps? What are the tools that are available for you to use? How can you embrace them? So we're going to unpack and talk about obviously social media, personal branding, digital marketing. We're going to talk about marketing automation and a platform he and I are both embracing big time called high level. Some of you are aware of it. Some of you are not, but it is growing rapidly in terms of the ability to scale, customize marketing campaigns, strategies and funnels at scale. As a matter of fact, it is the platform that we use over at my age and classes when you are promoting your age and classes, inviting sending out emails, text messages, landing pages, reminders and confirmations and follow up. It is the platform we use where you go learn how to teach our classes. All that's done on the backend on this program called on this platform called high level. And if you want to learn more about high level, number one, listen to this episode. But number two, we've got a link in the show notes that is going to direct you to a Facebook group, which is just all about high level and mortgage loan originators. As a matter of fact, it is the what's called the go high level, the ultimate mortgage marketing platform for mortgage pros. That is a private Facebook group. There's a link in the show notes. If you can join that, you don't have to be using high level to join that. You can just kind of, you know, join a conversation, see what's happening in there, see how other originators across the country are using high level. And by the way, whether you use high level or not, using your own marketing automation platform, CRM, you'll get ideas and strategies in there as well that you can apply and put into your own platform, whatever it is that you use. And so this is Michael and I also talk about this ongoing partnership that this is kind of like our official announcement. But Michael and I are officially partnered up and power L.O. and myself on the managing classes, mortgage marketing pro platform to be able to more efficiently deliver, you know, educational content to you, the originator at scale. So you can get more success stories just like the one I just shared with you with Mitch about the Asian classes he was teaching. So we run that all on high level. But more importantly, we're going to talk about next gen loan originator. What does it mean to you? And the importance of you becoming one. And there'll be more ongoing conversations between Michael and I on this podcast about digital marketing automation and becoming a next gen mortgage originator. So without further ado, let's get into this week's. Yo, Michael, welcome back to the show. Yeah, it's good to be back, Jeff. Thanks for having me. It's good to have you back. So today, we're just having a candid, we're riffing conversation all about the concept of the next generation or let's be cool and call it next gen. Yeah. The next gen mortgage loan originator. We want to unpack what that means because there's a lot of buzz going around. There's a lot of obviously tech talk. You host a wonderful group, which we're going to drive people to on Facebook, this high level group. So, you know, I'm teasing that out a little bit, but we're going to share that link with people. It'll be in the show notes, but it's a place to like, you're going to want to go after you hear this conversation today. So, um, do you want to for those who may not know who you are? Just give you a brief intro. Sure. Yeah, definitely. Um, my name is Michael McAllister. I'm the founder of Empower L.O. Formerly Empower Funnels. We've been in the mortgage marketing space since I as a loan officer left origination built a consumer direct system for my business and then started building it for other mortgage companies, loan officers, etc. That was back in 2017. Since then, we've we've expanded substantially into basically tailoring a software of really accessible, really well known in the marketing community software called high level. Some of your listeners might already be familiar with what that is. And I know that you're a fan of high level. I'm a fan of high level. And honestly, just marketing automation in general, using technology as a loan officer to improve your marketing as the context that we do it in. But wait, but the more we work with loan officers, the more that kind of expands into, you know, operational loan, loan and process communication, etc. So, um, yeah, short story long. I run Empower L.O. where the experts on go high level in the mortgage industry. We do a little consumer direct. And we work with you to deliver, in my opinion, the best value in the mortgage industry in the form of my agent classes. So thank you, man. I appreciate that. It's good partnership. More to come for you, people are wondering what the heck we're talking about there. So let's get into the conversation here. And I wanted to have the conversation because, um, you know, I mean, I wrote a book. I think it's gosh, two or three years back now with Disruptor Die, How to Survive and Thrive the Digital Real Estate Shift. And I've been thinking about a new book, if you will. And you and I were chatting the other day about this whole idea of the next generation loan officer. And what does that really mean? And, and, and who's going to survive and thrive, right? In the coming years. And so I thought it would be good for the listeners to bring this conversation to the surface. And then we have a chance to continue this conversation in the Facebook group via the link we'll give out when we're done. But, um, what is, we, you and I both did a little bit of homework on this to kind of prepare you. I'll be at did more than me. So close to you, you get the brownie points. There you go. What did, what's your take away? How would you summarize what we mean when we say next generation loan officer? Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm so excited to be talking about this because it's like, I feel like this is almost like a manifesto for me where it's like I, like I transitioned out of being a loan officer to bring the consumer direct system to more loan officers because it was so frustrating to me that a company like Quick and Loans could have a UVP in the marketplace that was just I know how to market consumer direct and all these other loan officers and mortgage companies don't, right? Like it, it just peed me that that was the case. And so this idea, like the fact that we've continued to stay in the mortgage industry and continue to be involved enough with our clients to have an opinion on like, Hey, what is this next, what is the next generation of successful loan officer? Not even just next generation, loan officer, but next generation of top producer, right? What is the next next generation of top producers look like within the mortgage industry? And for me, what it boils down to is effective use of technology by the group of people that have probably been most resistant to it up to this point, by the people that have been so focused on their borrower, their relationships with their borrowers that they have almost like put their hands up like shunned technology and at some points, you know, not necessarily entirely, but they're going to be a little bit slower to adapt technology because they are so focused on on not on automation, not on making shit easier for myself, but on delivering the best experience possible. So to me, the next generation of loan officers, next generation of top producers is the marriage between those. It's the understanding from these allows that are that are so dialed into what the best customer experience is going to be and and how to deliver that for their customers and at what points in the process, it's so important to over communicate on and how to leverage the right relationships within the loan process. All of this stuff is something that good loan officers know today, but the top producers of tomorrow are going to be the loan officers that have that knowledge and then look at technology as a tool that opens the door to create more of those personality personalized experience, create more of that one-on-one communication, those relationships that drive their business. So to me, again, it's this marriage between technology and not being a technology enthusiast that just wants to automate everything, but instead seeing technology as a tool to bring me closer to my borrower. I like the fact that you really have this distinction of it's not about just making everything easier and automating everything. As a matter of fact, that reminds me of a story I've been told in the wild pops in my head, but it is in the book and I remember when I first moved to Vegas like five years ago and we were shopping for a home and I'm out there over the weekend and we find the one, the home and we go there realtor and I really didn't know anybody here at that time and I'm like, okay, so who do you recommend? Typical buyer question and she refers me to two people or whatever and it was a Saturday and so I reached out to these two people and then was interesting because of course I was like, oh, this will be fun. I get to test and see how these people follow up on a Saturday like what happens, right? And the one thing that I remember about it is the first person I don't think I ever got a response from, but then the second one was I was, we wanted the home so bad as a lot of buyers do. You jump through hell and fire to get your pre-approval and stuff which I did. I got online and I'm really good. I completed the online app in its entirety, like uploaded assets connected the bank, you know, the whole whole nine yards man and it was freaking ready to go, right? And then what happened? Nothing. Nothing. Until Tuesday. Oh wow. And in Tuesday, I got an email from somebody, I don't know who it was, I can't remember at this point, it was obviously up to some type of an assistant or something like that. But it said something like, you know, hey, thanks for submitting your application so and so, so looking to forward, looking forward to work with you blah, blah, blah, blah and things just went south from there. You know what happened like the next day or two days after that? I got the automated video email that welcomed me to the team, like said, you know, we're in processing and by the by the way, I hadn't had a single conversation with anybody yet. Like three days in and I'm getting these emails and these videos as like, you know, we're freaking halfway down the road and I'm like, bro, I haven't even talked to anyone yet. Yeah. So the point of that story is is automation can be great and useful, but at the right time, right? And so time and cadence is all a factor of I think what you're saying and part of what you're saying is like, not automation just for the exclusive exclusion or exclusivity, I should say, of automation, but using it to improve the customer journey. Yeah, 100% and and and sometimes that means like sometimes that means you have to hold to conflicting beliefs like technology can make a process better and a technology can make a process worse and sometimes it means sometimes it means being able to again, what this comes down to for me is like opportunity cost of your time, right? So so for me, it's like automation can be used as a way to automate things that don't have a high point of leverage on my individual time. For example, a face-to-face conversation with a borrower. So it's like if I use automation and technology correctly in these other areas of my business when it comes to building out, you know, building out reports and and targeting, you know, agents and and you know, being able to create leverage through offering classes to a group of 30 agents at a time instead of a one-on-one conversation. If I can create leverage through technology and areas of my business that are not going to suffer from using technology, I can I now have more time that I can invest into having that face-to-face conversation, having that video phone call, whatever. So the online app was great. It was a great start to the experience, but what would have what would have been capitalizing on that is like if the minute that the application got submitted, if you were getting connected or getting a video call or you something with the loan officer, some real touch point personalized for you and the problem is is that that loan officer depended on technology to make his job easier, but then he didn't use that extra time and space that he had in his business as a way to create that more personalized experience and leverage that technology to go even further. Yeah. Did you have a definition that you wanted to share about next-gen loan officer and what does that mean for you to actually articulate that a little bit? I mean, it might not be Websters. It might not mean Websters. It doesn't exist. But I'll just read the first part of my little manifesto thing that I wrote here. I said to me, the ideal, and I'm looking over here, I'm looking at my screen over here for those that are watching the video, but to me, the ideal next-generation loan officer is someone who values relationships, but in the context of solving problems and adding real value. This is another component of it as well. I think there's a book right now called The Challenger Sale. It's a fairly... I don't know if it's a fairly new or just got popular again recently, but anyways, it's a similar concept of gap selling and it's the idea of selling based on, hey, you have a problem, I have a solution, let's fill the gap there. Versus, there have definitely been points in time in our industry, where relationship-based selling was truly relationship-based selling, where all you had as far as all you had to secure that referral partner was the relationship, was their personal opinion of you and the time that you've spent together and whatnot. I don't think that that's going to be the case going for. Yes, we have to be good at relationships. Yes, we have to be good human beings, decent human beings that do things right, but in the context of adding real value and solving problems, I don't think it's going to be good enough to be just a great guy, a great social guy, woman, and get business. Anyways, I'm sorry, let me finish. They use technology tools that enhance the borrower's experience and are focused on creating impactful connections throughout the mortgage process, not just on providing educational content, which is also a necessity, but it doesn't provide value differentiation anymore. Providing educational content on an automated basis is now a baseline. It is no longer a differentiator. It is no longer good enough to do that and say that you have good marketing in place. That was the last part of that. Well done. You've done your work, man. There's a couple of key words that I heard in your manifesto. One is connection, impactful connection. Actually, we were the two words back-to-back. Correct. And I think that illustrates the story that I just shared is that they made a connection with me with that automated process, but it wasn't impactful as the metaphor was damaging because it was automation used incorrectly. It was trying to, at scale, deliver the same thing for everybody. And that's where you get in a bit of the complexity. However, the other thing that I wrote down, and I just love this, is that you also mentioned relationship. So my definition, just off top of my head of next-generation mortgage originator, is one who embraces the more traditional aspects such as referral partners, relationships, fear of influence, all those traditional things, but also who can integrate the more modern tech customer journey that we're talking about social engagement, the automation aspect of it. But a bottom line is it all circles back to impactful human connections. And the other thing that I wrote down is with all this automation, because a lot of people using automation incorrectly and at the wrong time and creating negative brand engagement. The real thing to focus on with being next gen and technology is being more human. And there's the same one of my authors, favorite authors, Mark Schaefer, wrote a book called The Marketing Rebellion. And in that book, he says that the most human company will win. I chat GPT, we're all using it. I don't know about you, Michael, but I'm starting to see where I can actually recognize when it's an output from chat GPT. Yeah, yeah, 100% and there's going to be times when that's okay, like customer service. Let me talk to an AI who's going to deliver this customer service better than our usual customer experience, which is really poor. And you go through 17 different voice mails and all this kind of stuff. Well, that's going to be refreshing where you get to request. Would you like to talk to an AI or to a human, right? Well, you're going to be given a choice, right? Let's see how that plays out. But the point being is how do we then, I mean, if everybody's going to have this technology, right, then what's going to make us different? And how do we still stand out and have that human connection being a next gen originator? Yeah. I mean, that is the million dollar question, right? That is where my focus on this definition really comes from is making sure to be clear about that human element that has to come into play. Because in a world of AI's, like you said, the most human wins. In fact, I have a book sitting over there, maybe by its same author or that you were referencing, but it's literally called the most human wins or something like that, something along those lines. Similar idea. Again, the idea here is that, like, if everybody else has access to these tools, I mean, quick and loans, rocket mortgage, like they're going to get even better at leveraging these tools, which means we need to get even better at finding those key places to have those impactful connections and protecting the hell out of them, right? Like, for some people, this is the 10 out of three. I don't necessarily agree with this with this component, but I think this is a really good example of this mindset and of protecting an area that requires impactful human connection. I've got a buddy of mine, Ryan Chapman, who swears that as an originator, your number one job is to take loan applications. He thinks anybody who sends somebody to an online 10 out of three is messing up, basically. We've debated this over the years. We've been debating this for six, seven years now. And there is an L, like, there's, I will never trying to convince him to feel differently about that because what I value is that he has defined this part of the process as being a part of the process where he can create an impactful connection and he's protecting it for that reason. And so if it's your 1003, it's your 1003. If it's, if it's Ellie going over the Ellie with the borrower, then it's going over the Ellie with the borrower. If it's, you know, if it's the prequel, if it's, if it's while they're shopping, whatever it is, like, you just have to identify where those points are for your loan process and where you're going to create those impactful connections and then do so. And, and when you're doing it, realize that like, no amount of, like, like, you're not going to be able to trick them. Like, you're going to have to have to make it personal. Like, it does, I don't think it matters if it's a voice note, if it's a video, if it, whatever, like, don't try and game this step, find those pieces that you're going to protect and truly protect them with that human element and don't, don't compromise on those components of your process. Don't be willing to like, move that line at all of like, this much automation is okay. No, protect that shit and deliver your human connection. You see, as the biggest challenge or challenge is then facing, you know, we've got a bit of an older demographic in the mortgage space. Yeah, there's, we see younger people coming in all kinds of stuff, but generally, on average, right, most people are skewing 40 plus, probably on the high side of that even. So is, is the challenge adaptability or what do you think the biggest challenge is? Yeah, I mean, I think in a general sense, like that word can definitely be used to describe it. I think really what it comes down to, like the number one hurdle that I see is, is, like, a combination of, like, commitment and organization. So it's like, it's like, either non-existent organization now and a commitment to organize and get organized and stay organized, moving forward or, you know, it exists right now, but it only exists because I got all this shit together so that I can make this switch in my CRM or whatever, but I don't actually have any sort of commitment going forward to, like, making sure that I stay this organized. But at the end of the day, like, what makes good automation possible and those valuable, like, human connections, what makes those able to happen at scale and with leverage is by having good data integrity, meaning, like, your loans and process, you know exactly where your loans and process are all the time. Your every lead, every interaction that you get that you, you know, that you consider to be a prospect or an opportunity put it in your fricking CRM. And this is, I mean, we've been taught, like, the industry has been shoving this down our throats, like, since I got into the business eight, eight, nine years ago, and I know that it had been happening for decades before then, only the difference today versus now is I feel like CR, or today versus then is I feel like CRM's for a long time. We're there for the benefit of our company and not necessarily for our benefit. Whereas now we have these tools like high level where there is so much for us to benefit from in keeping our records up to date, keeping our contacts, where our contacts need to be keeping an eye on every loan we have in process, every prequel we have out. It's organization and its commitment to staying on top of that. If you can do that without focusing on any of the like ancillary features of a marketing automation software, if you can just, even if it's just with a fricking spreadsheet, if you can do it with a spreadsheet right now, then in my opinion, you're ready to make that jump like the the implementation of the technology has gotten easy enough that as long as you're organized and you're committed to staying organized, I think it's you're ready to make that jump. You're ready to like start taking managing that more seriously. So back to this thread of the customer journey. We know that on average, right? I mean, I don't have the stats in front of me, but in terms of the average application, shopping around whatever, I always equated to like the hummingbird, the consumer journey. They're going a few different places. They're extracting what they can from those different sources. So you listening right now, if you're wondering if next generation loan officer includes having a social media presence, you bet it does. Does it include having a fully optimized Google business profile with active reviews on there? Yeah, you bet it does because they're they are going around to these and they're collecting information, different pieces of information from different sources. So you do need to be present at the places that these people are at. And then you do need to have systems or technology in place to be able to move that person from that channel they're on. Social media, Google, whatever to your quote unquote funnel or to your own, you know, the customer journey that's specific with a with a specific intention that may have may have a questionnaire may have a quiz, a survey, a form right to be able to collect relevant information about that person leading up to that first point of engagement call or whatever it is. And I think that's where I people you and I are both working with loan officers who are looking to put those pieces together and they're not finding it really from the traditional mortgage platforms that we all know out there and could name. But they are able to do it not to sound like a commercial for high level, but let's just face it, you can do that on this platform called high level. Yeah, yeah. And high levels and high levels, not the only one too. I mean, like this is a rising rising tides float all boats, right? So like high level, although in my opinion, it's like the best, the easiest to use. We've been using it for four and a half years with loan officers and it's also the evil we know in some ways, right? But Zoho HubSpot and and, um, uh, shit, there's like copper CRM and like, like the more this technology hangs around, the more it's going like you're going to see it everywhere. The question is is like how, like, how much do you want this to be an advantage for you? How much do you want this? Like how bad do you want to be the next generation of top producers instead of waiting around for that to be the next generation of average producers are what's doing that. And now I'm going to implement it now that there's this software over here that does it this software over here that does it in this software over here that does it. So again, if you have a software that allows you to manage all of your your contacts in one place and execute all your entire marketing strategy, including posting social, emailing, text messaging, if you and organizing your database and being able to trigger, you know, pipeline stage changes and send video, like if you have a platform that does all of that by all means, then just use the one that you've got. But the point, like the, I think the point that I'm trying to make to listeners is I think that, uh, too many loan officers are looking at some of these features as being like, like a nice to have or a negotiable when they're evaluating their mortgage CRM choices, when really like the focus should be on finding the platform that A is giving me the most options now to market my business, but also who's shown that they're committed to staying ahead of that curve, which is another reason I really like high level is because every CRM in the mortgage space, like they're here for one reason and one reason only and it's to get bought by Black Knight someday basically, right? Like that, I mean, at the end of the day, like everybody in one of those mortgage CRM companies is talking about acquisition, acquisition, acquisition, that's all they're talking about, they're worried about what the investors want, what their, you know, what their VC funds want or whatever their venture capital funds want. And whereas this platform was built for marketers and not necessarily just for the mortgage industry. So there's definitely some work that you got to do to navigate that and we help out as much as we can. But this platform was built for marketers, buy marketers and their development cycle and how often they're adding new features and shit, it's just I've watched that long enough to be like, okay, I'm down with jumping on that train and making sure that any LOs that are following me are doing the same. Yeah. Well, look at this. So you definitely need to get educated first of foremost, which is we just wanted to start the conversation here. And if this turns out to be an interesting topic that you wanted us to go deeper on and have more frequent conversations around this next generation loan office discussion, what does that look like? Bring in actual loan officers that are actually, you know, embracing this and living it. You know, let us know. There's a place we can drive people right now, right? The Facebook group. Do you have that link handy, by the way? Yeah. Yeah, 100% I can get that. In fact, I might even have a permanent link for it. It's like GHL for mortgage pros or something. But yeah, basically it's a Facebook group where all it is are people, it's administered by us at Empower and all it is is a group of people that are using either this high level platform or considering using the high level platform. Some people in here aren't using it, but are using something similar. And it's basically just, yeah, all talk around this next-gen marketing stuff. It is Facebook.com slash groups slash ultimate GHL for mortgage pros. It'll be in the description, obviously, but for anybody who's just ancient. Yeah, well, listening right now, you want us to go scroll back to the episode, the links in the show notes. So you can just tap right there and request to join the Facebook group. And that's a way to stay connected in this continuing conversation. More lots of good resources we put in there, like different content, playbooks, all that kind of jazz. We do a lot. What do you go live once a week? Yep. Live once a week every Tuesday. Another weekly video that we drop explaining all of like the updates that have gone on in the last week with high level specifically. So allowing you to kind of stay ahead of the curve. Again, even if you're not using high level, other LOs are like you're going to want to see, you're going to want to at least stay tuned on the development cycle so that you can decide when that point is reached where it's like, ah, okay, that's the feature I was waiting for. Now I'm ready to make the jump. Right. And I can tell you for me personally how I've been using high level for the last two years. Some of some people know some people don't. You know, we have this whole platform. Michael and I work together on collaborate on. We've partnered on. It's called my agent classes. And what that is is essentially helping a lot of officers leapfrog from solicitor and vendor to partner and peer when they're wanting to get engagement with real estate agents that lead to conversations and referrals. As many of you know, the traditional methods of co-calling and, you know, I've done it all open houses broker-previewed you name it, right? Buy a bottle of champagne for the listing agent. All those work, but they don't work that effectively or at scale. And they put you at a disadvantage position, as mentioned, solicitor vendor, whereas if you become a partner and peer and actually become part of their business by leading with education, that changes the dynamic, the narrative. And all of a sudden, you are seen as an equal, right? And not as a vendor, in a place to get something. And therefore, what happens is trust goes up, resistance goes down, and then referrals are accelerated and facilitated on a much more frequent basis. And you have the ability to engage in, you know, brokerages in boards of, you know, realtor boards in large teams, etc. Like the success stories we have are off the charts. However, the point is, is that a lot of people know of lunch and learns in classes. And that's great. Most people do them haphazardly once in a while. But if you do it as actually a system, like the system is the solution, and you do those repeatedly and follow a proven system, the way we leverage high level to do that is we handle all the reservations, the confirmations, the landing pages, the email reminders, the SMS text reminders, the complete realtor funnels, and, you know, nurture campaigns and ghost did get, you know, it's the amount of stuff that we do in there to help facilitate conversations. That's why I personally got started with high level. And now this kind of partnership between Michael and I, where we can actually fulfill the definition of the next generation originator, originator, which is both sides of those traditional, you know, as we said before, but also embracing the modern tech tools. For me, the over the last two years, even though like you said, any platformer CRM has its challenges and a learning curve. But I'm glad I took the challenge, because now, right, the impact we're able to make on behalf of loan officers, helping them get results is what I love the most. Yeah, 100%. And for those listening, like the one thing that I love about this partnership with you, Jeff is like, it gives people a story or a use case. It gives people like an exact game plan on how to use high level and like be successful with it. It's like, like, even if you don't want to use any of the other features of high level and you just want to run these classes, it's going to allow you to dip your toe and get exposure to these tools that you might hear other people talking about or see people online talking about. It's going to get you that exposure in a controlled environment that allows you to just kind of like tip toe into adoption of maybe some of the other features and high level later on. But right out of the gate, so like on your onboarding call, we're scheduling your first class, you've got everything you need to be able to do like do that first class. And it's all inside of high level. So that's that's something I think is really cool for your listeners that aren't sure. I've or maybe they tried signing up for high level and didn't know what to do with it or anything. It's like to sign up for my agent classes and get all of that preloaded and exact use case of like, hey, log in do this every day. It's a really cool environment for then you to be able to say, okay, well, while I've got this tool, let me let me see how this works. Let me see how this works. And so yeah, that's just something I'll throw, throw out there. Matter of fact, we have a, I've got to do this and then we'll wrap up. But I had a testimonial come in just yesterday. Janelle, if you're listening, what's up, Janelle, appreciate you. She taught the video marketing class. 21 agents attended. 21. Like her first class. For your how long would it, it's not her very first class, but it's, you know, it's she had 21 agents in a room. Yeah, long would it take you to have your first conversation with 21 agents, right? If you're cold on this stuff. Anyway, she goes on to say left the class with a hot referral that she though the realtor got while sitting in the class at the beginning of the class. So by the time the class ended, there was so much value established, the realtor was so attracted to want to reciprocate to Janelle, right? And then one last thing, she also got another referral from another agent from a different class. Janelle hosted previously. So literally one class she can't even finish the class. And she's got two leads coming in. And this was even before she followed up with any of the 21 that attended. So leverage scale, law of large numbers, put it in your favor. Michael, she had the Facebook group. If you also want to learn more about the classes, you can go to mortgagemarketing.pro, check it out, video, testimonials, and you can book a call with me there. So this is just the beginning. Next, Janelle officer. I hope so. I love this man. I could talk about this forever. Yeah. And I'd love to get some feedback from people. So however you want to leave feedback, right? You can obviously reach me on social media. Michael, what's your handles? Are you on the social bro? You better be next, Jen. Ish. Ish. I'm on social ish. I'm on Facebook. I'm in that Facebook group all the time. I like threads. I really like threads, but threads doesn't like me very much. I don't give very much engagement on threads, but that's a cool and that's like old school Twitter. So yeah, Michael, Michael McAllister, Empower L.O. should be pretty easy to find though. We'll put all the links in the show notes so you guys can follow, you know, all the stuff you want to do there and appreciate your feedback too. So I think there's this is this is one of those topics where we're just opening the box on this. We haven't taken all the toys out yet, but more to come on that. So thanks for joining me on this conversation. One for next Janelle officer. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm sure everybody listening agrees. I hope so. All right. Hey, we'll see you on the next one. People you know what to do. Follow the links in the show notes and until the next one. Take care. 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. 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 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 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.